


No Land Without a Lord

by Anonymous



Category: Original Work
Genre: Child Abuse, Consensual Kink, Dom/sub, Fealty, Feudalism, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gender Issues, Homage, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Middle Ages, Mildly Dubious Consent, Murder, Nightmares, Psychosis, Shapeshifting, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture, Trauma, Violence, which of you is the feudal lord and which of you has a zillion issues with lordship being a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 03:22:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 71,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13379073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Ziari tries.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my beta-reader, strictlyquadrilateral.

_“There’s just one thing about that fire_  
_I still don’t understand:_  
_The fragrant flowers you burned today_  
_Were sown by your own hand.”_

_“Of course,” said Lani, hands spread wide—_  
_They say he couldn’t tell_  
_Why love for flowers he had sown_  
_Should make him wish them well._

—When the Garden Burned, traditional Serinnaise ballad

Ziari was alone, even in the circle of dancers, his hands in the hands of two strangers, his best friend in this city too busy with the princess and queen on this second-most-important of Serinne’s feasts. He put on a bright smile and watched the brown boots of the woman on his right as they moved crisply through one step, _then_ the next, _then_ the next, sharp and distinct without the slightest slurring of one step into the next. This dance was called the Girl From Sarn; Ziari had only danced it once before, a year ago, at the last solstice.

That song ended and the musicians began another one about herblore; the dance they did to that one was familiar to Ziari. He looked around for his friend Varille in the crowd milling around the edges of the square that was serving as a dance floor. Not there; still not there. Trying to distract himself, trying to bear being ignored after risking worse than death for Varille’s sake, Ziari looked around at the other dancers instead—he saw a woman in a dark blue skirt and tunic, the hems embroidered in gold, and a handsome man with a scar that ran from his temple down to his chin, and an old woman taking the small, smooth, graceful steps of the very weak. One man had on gloves—in this weather, a sure sign he’d curse anyone he touched. Everyone here was dressed as nicely as possible, so it amused Ziari to count those who _had_ nicer-than-everyday clothes and those who clearly didn’t, and to think smugly of the poverty of those who had only one set of clothes, and how easy it was to tell who had some _chance_ of being worth his time and who was simply worthless.

Ziari, who was wearing the only outfit he owned, had never denied that he was a bit of a hypocrite. Then again, he _could_ have a nice outfit if he spent his money differently—the silver bracelet around his right wrist had cost him a star, but it was worth more than all the gold in the world to him; besides that, there were the two stars hidden under his friend’s feather-stuffed mattress and he’d lent a leaf to Morelet without seriously expecting to be repaid, and then besides that he was owed another star from Varille that hadn’t been paid yet. He _could_ have dressed well today. It was possible there were others like him, but he was fairly sure that nine of every ten people in plain working clothes were just common and poor.

His only other real friend was busy working on the dinner that the castle would serve that night. Ziari did have a handful of other people he knew reasonably well and was as helpful to as possible, but he had no interest in spending the Solstice with any of them.

Another song. Varille was still nowhere in sight, so Ziari smiled and contemplated going off to find him and maybe dragging him back to the castle to give him a good slap in the face and a few words on how unbelievably ungrateful Varille must be to ignore Ziari the very day after Ziari’s return from risking life and sanity for him. Of course, that sort of behavior did have a tendency to make people stop liking him, and he wasn’t done with Varille just yet. Such a kind man, and noble, of course, and wealthy—but most of all, kind.

Kind, and yet too busy to be with Ziari.

The crushing loneliness finally got to be too much for him to dance through. His heart just wasn’t in it, so he backed up a step, brought his hands—and the hands of the people on either side of him—together, and let go.

He wanted Varille. He wanted to touch Varille, wanted to run a hand through his long, dark hair. He wanted to stroke Varille’s pockmarked face. But, well, he would _always_ want that, no matter how recently they’d been together. If he and Varille were talking together, had been talking together for an hour, had maybe been kissing or more, and if Varille then had to take a break to go pee, Ziari would probably be just as furious about being ignored. Someone else might have been able to ask outright for companionship after so long away, but only because this sort of loneliness would be a rare problem. There was no point in trying to solve an unsolvable problem, so Ziari wouldn’t.

Instead, he leaned against the stone wall of a bakery and watched them dance the Blacksmith, trying to distract himself by paying attention to the world around him. He breathed in the scent of the city: Solanne smelled much better than Malito, partly thanks to Arana’s efforts, more the heavy salt scent of the sea than the choking reek of human waste, though there was that too; and here there was also the scent of fresh bread that nearly overwhelmed the less immediately pleasant miasmas that meant safety and salvation to those who knew enough to appreciate them.

The sun was already high—they’d started dancing somewhere around the second hour, by church reckoning, though that had come early today. It was the hour of the wren right now, by the secular reckoning, meaning that if this were the equinox, the sun would have just risen. They wouldn’t eat till half past the tenth hour, and there were only twenty-eight hours in a day. Ziari had arrived home late last night, after supper, and hadn’t eaten in almost a day already. If he stole something from the kitchen, though, it would be the cooks who took the blame. And if he asked Varille’s permission, it would be known he was weak, weak as the most human of people. And if there was one impression he didn’t want to give, it was that he was fully human, in need of a morning meal and doomed to die before his ninetieth birthday.

He was past feeling any pain in his stomach, though—for now—and hunger was almost as bad to dwell on as loneliness. There were the dancers to watch, moving all together like a flock of birds in the air, coming closer together and stepping back and constantly in motion. He counted how many were women and how many were men—two more men than women, at the moment—and how many stumbled and how many needed to watch someone else’s feet—fully a third missed a step just while he watched. He turned his attention elsewhere, too, to the musicians—one played rote, one psaltery, and the third sang and played his drum—and then to the girl who took the opportunity, as the dance called for a demanding set of steps with much energy and little sideways movement, to cut a dancer’s purse free from his belt. Varille would want to know about that; one hand on his own purse, Ziari watched the girl hide her prize, wander off a little ways down a street to see the merchants who had brought goods into the city for the solstice, examine a tanner’s selection of belts and a smith’s impressive collection of knives, and finally stop and join a man apparently trying to sell a handful of paintings.

She stayed with him and didn’t seem to be pretending to be a customer. She might be his daughter.

Ziari wondered if any of the people nearest him were thieves. One was probably not; the woman standing a little to his left, watching the crowd and spinning yarn, was secretly in the crown’s employ, tasked with trying to prevent violence. There were probably others, given that there was one, but Ziari wouldn’t recognize most of them. The man in particolored red and blue was watching Ziari (probably thinking Ziari was unaware of this), trusted and well-regarded enough by enough of Solanne to have the task of secretly surveilling the untrustworthy wanderer of unknown origin.

He had no idea about the two men talking animatedly about metalworking just outside the blacksmith’s right beside the bakery; he didn’t think he’d seen either before. The slave passing by in a felon’s collar was carrying too much to have his hands free for any such thing, unless maybe his gift allowed him to lift things with his mind. There was a Livenite nun talking to an Altrist cleric—two of the few exceptions to the rule that anyone not dressed specially for the occasion was simply of too low a station—and a steady trickle of people, in ones and twos and sometimes groups, making their way around the edges of the square, out of the dancers’ way as much as they could manage, moving from one street to another. Ziari didn’t see anyone else steal anything—which didn’t mean it didn’t happen—but he did recognize a member of the castle guard, off duty, who seemed to be considering joining the dance.

Ziari walked up to him. “Good morning, Girout,” he said with a grin that said very clearly that he had a fun little proposal to make.

Girout turned to face him and greeted him. His tone was pleasant, but his expression was just slightly wary.

“Want to know something funny?” Ziari asked, casually but also quietly. “Take a look at that man, the one in brown and white with the black belt. See his purse?”

Girout frowned for a while as he looked. “No,” he admitted.

“Exactly,” said Ziari. “I don’t think he’s noticed it’s missing yet. I saw who took it and I was thinking I’d help get it back, but I want better odds than two against one before I offer. Two pence for your help?”

That got the reaction he intended—and not just from Girout; he heard the cleric cut short his conversation and start walking.

“And you’re sure he’s just one man?” asked Girout. “Or does he have friends with him?”

“I _think_ he doesn’t have anyone with him that would cause any trouble for us,” said Ziari. That still didn’t _guarantee_ victory—four could still lose to one, particularly if the one turned out to be able to control fire or grow fifteen feet tall, which Ziari didn’t yet know for sure that this thief couldn’t do—but it certainly improved the odds.

Girout might have had something to say to that, but they were interrupted then. “Excuse me,” said the Altrist cleric, whose accent suggested that he’d come from Perrau, “but could two take you up on that offer?”

“Sure,” said Ziari. “With four—the three of us and him—we even have enough witnesses to take this to court.”

Girout looked very puzzled. The cleric raised his eyebrows.

“It makes Varille happy when people use his courts,” Ziari said with a shrug. “I’d certainly like him to be happy with me.”

The cleric nodded and Girout laughed. “Just as long as I get paid,” said Girout, “then I’m happy.”

Ziari nodded acknowledgment. To the cleric, he said “You go fetch the man while I keep an eye on the thief.”

He and Girout went to wait near the tanner’s stall, set up near the square, in a fairly wide street—easily ten feet from building to building. Girout examined the belts, a few of them dyed various colors. The tanner offered to answer any questions they might have. Ziari, meanwhile, split his attention between his own immediate surroundings and the painter-thief. If he could arrange this so Varille just happened to notice Ziari’s help, that might put just a little more goodwill between him and total isolation from all mankind. No need to feel bad about Varille ignoring him when he could easily use the time to make himself more indispensable, more worthy of prolonged and unwise tolerance.

The painter had a canvas canopy above him, supported by four poles, and a couple of fold-up wooden stands for displaying his several paintings. He sat on a three-legged fold-up stool with canvas for a seat, which must have cost a fair amount; he was clearly not a thief by _necessity_ , when, if he were starving, he could have sold the stool. But then again, maybe not; Ziari would rather starve than sell his silver bracelet, because in the end he’d be just as dead either way, and a physical death by starvation would hurt less. Whether the painter had similar reasons or not, Ziari couldn’t know yet and didn’t care enough to find out.

“That’s them,” he heard the cleric say, leading the other man to Ziari and Girout.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” the man said. “Father Essor tells me you’ve offered to help me. I am Taver of Lyebault—and you two are…?”

This told Ziari several things: that Taver was either nervous or stupid; that the cleric was no cleric—except in the sense that _everyone_ sworn to Altri was, technically, a cleric—but rather a priest; and that Taver either couldn’t, or didn’t want to show that he could, pronounce Perrauan names like Ethor..

“Girout. I work at the castle,” said the guardsman, apparently deciding that yes, they would bother with introductions for this very brief alliance. “And this is a vagrant who hasn’t committed any crimes so far that I know of.” Which was about how everyone saw him; like a lynx that had wandered into town and _might_ just choose to sit at your feet and purr but what would possess you to let it? “So how about you describe your purse to us before we get it for you?”

Ziari turned back to watch the painter—and, out of the corner of his eye, the very interested tanner trying not to draw attention while he eavesdropped. Not that he could have avoided that, regardless.

“Brown,” said Taver, “but the string’s white—see?—and there’s a rip that my wife had to mend with undyed, sort of tan thread because that’s what we had.”

Ziari noticed the girl leave the painter and head off down the street, and without bothering to mention that to anyone else, he sprinted after her, dodging past the smith and the painter, and tackled her. They both hit the stone street and she lost her grip on the purse; Ziari grabbed it—yes, it was brown with white strings—got off her, and turned back to face the other three men, who were now staring at him.

“Catch!” he said and tossed Taver his purse. The horrible, awkward thing about this moment was that even if Varille did hear about this, what he was most likely to hear about was Ziari unhesitatingly assaulting a girl who didn’t look more than ten at the oldest. Ziari felt himself blush, forced himself to breathe evenly through the terror that always accompanied shame—but everyone could see how awful he was, everyone would know he was a horrible person, everyone would revile him, all because of that thieving painter.

Ziari snarled at the painter. “You would trick a child into hiding your stolen goods? You would get a child—a helpless child, who _trusts_ you, who _needs_ you—involved in your lawbreaking? Die of cancer, you poxy lich!” He advanced slowly on the criminal. By now, there was something of an audience gathering in the street: nearer the square there were Taver and Girout and Ethor, as well as the smith and the tanner and a couple of strangers; behind Ziari were other merchants and a small handful of customers, who must be aware of and watching this. Girout started walking toward Ziari.

Beside the painter was a canvas sack; Ziari grabbed it and dumped its contents on the street: two hard-shelled pies, two more purses, and a vaguely cylindrical bundle. Ziari picked up the other two purses. On one, the strings had very obviously been cut—and too short to tie to anything, too. Perfect; maybe Ziari could remind everyone that this man—now sitting very still, watching Ziari with wide, fearful eyes—was the criminal here, not, for once, Ziari. “Taverie’s cunt, what do you need both of these for? Well?” Ziari grinned madly as he paused to let the man answer.

“One’s mine,” said the painter.

“Cancerous _liar_ ,” Ziari spat. “Then what’s the one you’re wearing?”

He heard footsteps and a sudden scuffle behind him; when he turned, Girout was holding the girl back from attacking Ziari. Poor child; she seemed to have scraped her palms badly, besides getting the fright of her life, and Ziari was almost certain she would soon be beaten for her failure. Then again, it wasn’t as though she wouldn’t deserve it. Pathetic creature.

Ziari turned back to the painter, who had drawn a knife and was just standing up.

“Don’t be stupid,” said Ziari, taking both purses in his right hand and reaching for his knife. “I don’t want to kill you— _yet_ —and neither do my friends. Right?”

“I don’t care what happens to him,” said Girout.

“So sheathe that before you hurt yourself,” said Ziari. Faced with two men staring him down, the painter complied. “Good. Now, Ethor, come here. The law calls for fourfold repayment. Well, I count four purses—Taver’s, these two, and that one.” With his knife, Ziari pointed to the painter’s own purse. “I trust you to count coins, but I’d rather we not end up fighting over an extra penny. There are three purses here. Let’s none of us look inside yet, and we’ll all take one and whatever’s in it. You two pick first. Both of these feel like more than two pence.”

“I want his,” said Girout.

The painter hesitated, then untied his purse from his belt and tossed it to the ground a couple of feet away. By then, the girl had stopped struggling; Girout let go of her and went to pick up the purse. The girl ran—not to the painter, and not to attack Girout or Ziari or Ethor; she just ran, down the street and away from the square. She might not be able to make it on her own, if she didn’t have family to run to—but maybe she did. And then again, maybe she would die all on her own. Still probably better than staying with the thief.

Ethor had to turn sideways to get past Girout to reach Ziari. Once he was there, he picked one of the purses right out of Ziari’s hand. “I might know whose this is,” he said. “Thank you.”

That left Ziari with the nicest of the three—the most likely to be missed by someone wealthy—and nothing much else. No court record for Varille to discover. A bunch of witnesses who’d just seen him tackle a child and shout obscenities. They would likely agree he was in the right, or at least less in the wrong, and doing the important work of enforcing the law and maintaining order—but then, if pressed, anyone would say the same about the people who gathered dog shit to sell to tanners, and you didn’t see many people praising them for their necessary and unpleasant work.

His victory having turned to ashes in his mouth, Ziari decided it was time to give up on the day.

-~-

Ziari hid out in Varille’s bedroom to sulk, because if you had to write the day off as a total loss and lie around in despair, it was just better to do that on a feather bed with soft cotton sheets. The castle guard didn’t give him any trouble about it, either; by now, they knew their king had an unwise and unwarranted trust for Ziari, to the point of letting Ziari use his lovely feather bed.

It was still hours before midday, which made it difficult to sulk discreetly without looking like the world’s laziest man, going to take a nap in the middle of the morning. And that reminded him of two of the three things he was sulking about. Ziari buried his face in Varille’s soft pillow. He was too human for life in a royal court, without the refined half-elven constitution—less than an eighth elven, actually, Varille was always reminding him, and that was the royal family, more elven than anyone else now—that let people like Varille go all morning without food. Ziari hadn’t had much chance to eat yesterday, either, and if he had the refined constitution of an elf, he would be fine now, rather than miserable.

And then there was the purse he’d stuffed inside his purse, the nice one he’d taken—justly confiscated, not stolen—from a thief. He still hadn’t counted his earnings from that little misadventure. Who cared, though? He didn’t stop criminals for the money. No, and this particular thief, making a girl do half the work, had forced Ziari to choose between giving up—publicly embarrassing himself and being seen wasting other people’s time—and tackling a child who couldn’t be more than ten—making his public heroism unimpressive and almost shameful. That damn cancerous cutpurse had robbed him of the goodwill and approval that was Ziari’s only reason for helping any government with anything. And now what? When would Varille realize—if he hadn’t already—that Ziari, human as he might appear, useful as he might seem, was in fact a vicious wild animal that no one should ever trust? Or maybe he already understood that, in which case, the question was when Ziari would stop being so unbelievably useful that Varille tolerated him. Whenever that happened, it would be the… sixth? Seventh? …time Ziari had to cut ties, run away and settle somewhere new. This time, he would need to either find a new country—again—or adopt a new face.

Ziari rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Of course he wouldn’t change his face. This face was one of Tinalu’s gifts, part of the desperate last generosity of a dying man, along with the only charm on his bracelet that wasn’t made of silver. So another country it was. He spoke Serinnaise, a beautiful tongue, with a fluency that let him pass as a native of Serinne, and Liaten, the world’s ugliest language, with actual native fluency; Serinnaise wouldn’t get him far outside Serinne, except in the border regions of Liat—but he was never going back to Liat—but they spoke a dialect of Liaten in East Liat, and he had just a smattering of Litan, too, enough to maybe speak to the educated clergy in just about any land… maybe…

It went without saying that this was all a question of when, not if—but still, pondering it made him want to scream and wail and maybe stab Varille for wrongs not yet committed. Of course, stabbing people and other violence tended not to be very useful in accruing goodwill. Quite the opposite, in fact, as he knew from experience.

Sometimes it was just unbearably difficult to make himself useful enough not to be cast out or killed, and it weighed him down and made him sick with frustration to know no amount of making himself useful would ever win him a permanent place; the instant he took sick or retired from his soul-devouring work, it would be as though he’d never been anything but a stranger.

He wasn’t close enough to losing control to need pain to help him keep his temper, so he did nothing and would probably have kept on stewing about everything if not for the fact that the door opened. Ziari sat bolt upright and grasped the handle of his knife, just in case.

It was Varille. Ziari flopped back down onto the bed.

“Not enjoying the dancing?” Varille asked, shutting the door behind him. “Good. Selfish as it is, I’d very much like some time to talk.”

Something unknotted in Ziari’s heart. “About the highwaymen?”

“Them first, I suppose,” said Varille. “Or later—Arana might join us soon; I’d like to hear her thoughts if she does…”

“So you _don’t_ want to hear about the conspiracy yet?” Ziari asked, smirking.

Varille took a seat on the edge of his bed and twisted around to look at Ziari, who grinned at him obnoxiously.

“It might be faster for you to just dictate your report to me now and let her read it when—that is, _if_ she decides to join us. I think she reads faster than you can talk.”

Ziari hadn’t known that, or even guessed. That almost certainly implied that the queen could read silently, which meant that there might, soon, be three people in a room, assembled for reasons other than their literacy, who could _all_ read silently. Ziari would bet that they weren’t the _only_ such people in the world, but there weren’t that many others, surely. It was a useless skill to develop, unless you were a spy—and most people couldn’t even sound out Litan, which used to be the only way to avoid hanging for certain crimes before Varille’s new sentencing guidelines. Given that most people couldn’t learn to sound out words to save their lives, frankly, Ziari doubted there were more people in all the world who could read silently than could all fit together in a small room.

“So you _do_ want to know, huh?” Of course, the answer to that was that Varille wouldn’t send someone to spy on people if he didn’t want to hear what those people were up to. Still, teasing him was fun.

“I do,” said Varille, standing up. Ziari listened as Varille found all the necessary supplies to take notes. After a while, Varille said, “I’m ready to start writing.”

“All right. I visited Perrau, Sarn and the West,” said Ziari, which Varille knew already. “I heard rumors of a conspiracy in the name of Taverie to interfere with the followers of Lani. By eavesdropping, I found out that High Priest Ressap took those rumors for granted while talking to one of his priests. I asked the anchorite Agace in Attreton and she claimed to believe it but said she was sure the gods and the king would handle it. I heard the rumors repeated by a deacon who seemed scared to try to travel from Attreton to Perrau. I noticed that a Lanian messenger carrying a letter from Chenarre to the basilica in Attreton had several armed men with him when he arrived. I went to Perrau—the city, I mean—ahead of a deacon who left Attreton with a letter, but as far as I saw, he never arrived. When I went back to Attreton and asked after him, I was just told he’d gone and should be back soon. Of course, I didn’t do any of that with my own face or using the name Ziari. But one thing I did use my own name for was talking to someone I know in Perrau—the region, not the city—who told me the _real_ problem with banditry in Serinne is that merchants can’t get through the Northwood without being stopped, and it’s the Lanians who want to get in the way of logging and building a road, so of course it’s all their fault that anyone is ever robbed—so my contact says—and that, praise Taverie, _some_ people are doing something about that. Then, since he knows I’m in Solanne a lot, he gave me a penny to tell one of your servants to find some way to convince you that anyone killing Lanians deserves a royal pardon for making trade between Lisse and the rest of Serinne easier and breaking the power of untrustworthy sailors who profit from the danger of overland travel in and out of Lisse. He says—he _says_ —that the Northwood is haunted by bandits who castrate every cleric who passes through, kidnap every woman they meet and all force themselves on her—one after another or all at once, he wasn’t sure—and sacrifice babies to Lani and the forest spirits. Funny that he should be hearing rumors like that, huh? I think it’s possible the Taverian conspiracy is spreading them.”

Ziari’s contact had asked him if he knew the bandits, since they were his kind of people. He’d answered that, no, there was no Worthless Lowlife Guild to arrange dinners for them all to meet each other at, and even if there were such a guild, he’d probably be too worthless even for them. His contact had magnanimously told him that he was definitely not as worthless as the bandits in the Northwood and that there was definitely hope for Ziari. After all, look what Taverie had done for his contact, who was now a much better person and drank less.

“Anyway,” said Ziari, “there sure is a conspiracy. I might even be able to join. Maybe. It depends. And they have popular support in some places—not Perrau City, I don’t think, but other parts of Perrau. Not in Sarn, though. The West… maybe. I don’t have the right kind of sources there to find out. And something else my source in Perrau told me might interest you: he used to say merchants were liars and cheaters, but now he says they’re not the _worst_ sort of people. Without them, people would have a lot more trouble getting things from far away—not every village has a local blacksmith, or what if the crops fail one year in Lisse but not in Sarn?—and that’s new. He didn’t think that way before. He says he’s learned a lot lately.”

He’d also said maybe Ziari would make a good trader; he could travel from place to place, mostly visiting cities and towns and avoiding the poorest of people, and he didn’t need to be capable of growing anything or making anything. Ziari had laughed at that.

“You want to know what I think about it all?” he asked Varille.

“Of course.”

“It’s hard to get into or out of Lisse—either you risk the sea and pirates and storms, or you pass overland through the Northwood without a road. Merchants take heavy losses and risk their lives either way. Doing something about pirates is hard; you’ve _already_ set traps for them and killed some, and what else can you do? They’ll keep harrying your coasts and your ships. But the forest could be made safer more easily: just cut it down. So why don’t you? Plenty of reasons. Because the same bandits that make travel dangerous also make logging dangerous. Because the forest is rumored to be sacred to Liven. Because the Lanians are against it and they have some influence over the Earl Marshall, and you listen to him at least sometimes. So say the Lanians were discredited or could be convinced to give up their opposition. Say the forest spirits were evil. Say the bandits finally drew enough of your attention for you to get rid of them—not forever, but while the forest was empty, before anyone new could learn the lay of the land and get as established as these bandits are, then the forest could be cut down. So they try to discredit Lani and the forest spirits by saying they receive human sacrifice. They try to intimidate the Lanians by making travel difficult, and that might also get in the way of some other exercise of power that I don’t know about—maybe they’re paying people not to try to cut down the forest? That’s just a guess. And then they make you stop and think about bandits and the safety of travelers. And how will you tell who’s actually involved? You certainly can’t just, say, execute every merchant who’s ever traveled through the Northwood. Or everyone who’s too scared to. Or can you? At least some of them are important for trade reasons, aren’t they? Wouldn’t anything you did to _every_ merchant in Serinne be… well…”

“Counterproductive?” Varille suggested dryly. “Yes. Besides earning me a reputation worse than my father’s and angering the gods, I might seriously damage the spice trade—or rather, I might guarantee that no one ever carries any farther west than Liat, and then everyone accustomed to having ginger with dinner would be angry with me—and, gods know, that’s been hard enough with all the piracy the last few years. And without trade, Lisse might wither away. Lean years would be much more difficult to deal with; I might have to personally organize grain redistribution, using crown resources… and, of course, it would violate my own conscience to punish the innocent. I need to know _exactly_ who’s behind this. Do you think you can get that information by infiltrating the conspiracy?”

Ziari frowned. “It’s… not completely out of the question, but they might be prepared for that. I’d probably only meet whatever poor people they’ve convinced to help them, rather than whoever’s financing this conspiracy. There’d be no point.”

Varille sighed and was silent for quite a while.

Ziari had another idea, but refrained from suggesting it. He was tired of his work and there was so much he’d rather do. He’d rather be with someone who loved him—however temporarily, however conditionally, even if that love would evaporate the instant Varille understood certain things about Ziari. He’d rather not be alone, just for a while. He’d rather be Ziari, not yet another assumed identity; he’d rather serve his own interests than act against them yet again for yet another disguise. And even failing all that, if he had to travel again, he would sooner it be somewhere with a Lanian anchorite he could convince to teach him Lani’s revelations; he’d learned just enough, spying on the Lanians in Attreton, that his interest was piqued.

In the end, it did him no good to stay silent, because Varille thought of the same idea. “Use your gift to spy on them, then.”

His so-called gift. Yes, that was Ziari’s idea, too. As a shapeshifter, he could force his body into a new shape, reshape his bones, force his limbs to bend in new ways, all the while enduring the agony of calling on his power. It was the kind of thing that made lesser men scream. Ziari, of course, would never balk at doing it if that was what it took to keep Varille’s tolerance for just a little while longer. He could certainly become something small and unobtrusive—a mouse, say, or a sparrow—and follow one member of the conspiracy around a while. Maybe that person would talk to someone a little higher up, and Ziari could tail that one for a while, and so on, all the while speaking to no one, unnoticed, away from his life and his home and his friend and his very identity.

Of course, Varille’s gift was that he never needed to sleep. As far as Ziari could tell, it meant nothing except that Varille could work harder than normal _and_ have more time for leisure than anyone else, and never hurt to use. Ziari magnanimously refrained from murdering him out of sheer jealousy.

“I’ll think about how I might do that,” said Ziari. “Anyway, that’s enough about that. You’re not out enjoying the dancing either, huh?”

“I hate festivals. I’ll be at the services later.” By which he had to mean some combination of the ecumenical, official three-hour-long service that would start at midday, and one or more of the smaller services to various specific gods that would be held throughout the evening.

“I won’t.” Ziari had finally accomplished one thing, at least: he’d found a life where he no longer needed to keep up even the pretense of being part of society. “I hope the gods all get cancer and die screaming. Especially Mersa. What’s she ever done for me? _I_ could do a better job of deciding who gets sick than _she_ does.” _Mersa least honors the humblest of people,_ said the Litany of Godly Virtue, meaning she preferred to make the arrogant sick, and if Ziari could goad her into killing him, that would be great. Hence the insults.

“She does work in mysterious ways,” Varille allowed. “It… isn’t immediately obvious to me that illness is truly distributed in proportion to arrogance; she certainly appears to take other factors into consideration at least some of the time. Mothers’ prayers, maybe, and the prayers of loved ones.”

“It’s not just arrogance on the one hand and mothers praying for mercy on the other, either,” said Ziari.

Varille paused a while. Ziari listened to him put away his inkbottle and stared at his back. It wasn’t rudeness that had Varille facing away from Ziari; half of it was character, a habit of looking away when talking to people, and half of it was just how the room was laid out: round, like the tower, with a door opening onto the spiral staircase and a narrow window in the wall opposite the door. Varille had a desk—of course he had a desk; he could have had three desks and ten chairs if he wanted; he was a king. He’d put it where he could look out the window while he sat at it (because he had a chair, too). His bed (Varille had four whole pieces of furniture in his room, plus a stack of five books topped with almost an inch of loose papers) was to one side of the door, almost perpendicular to the desk. Ziari had flopped down on the bed at a right angle to the _intended_ direction, which meant that, by turning his head to the side, he could watch Varille from behind without having to sit up.

Eventually, Varille sighed and then answered. “No, it isn’t. That’s true. Well, this is a macabre line of reasoning, isn’t it?” He stood and turned to face Ziari. “I see you’ve managed to cover my entire bed. Any chance you’ll let me join you?”

Ziari rolled over so that he was at the head of the bed and refrained from spreading his limbs everywhere. Varille slipped off his shoes and lay down, using Ziari as a pillow in lieu of the one Ziari was occupying at the moment. The weight of his head on Ziari’s chest was a comfort, a reminder that he was real, that they were together even if only for this moment. Ziari worked his right hand out from under Varille’s shoulders while Varille squirmed and pressed himself deeper into the mattress and just generally made Ziari’s life difficult on purpose. Ziari laughed.

Varille let out a long sigh. “This is much more fun than dancing.”

“You don’t like dancing,” said Ziari.

“Good point. This is much more fun than joining a monastery,” said Varille.

While Ziari was busy silently assimilating the information that monasteries were more fun than dancing, he heard footsteps on the stairs, then a few quiet, indistinct words—a guardsman, sounding polite and not at all perturbed. More footsteps.

“She’s here,” Ziari told Varille just before there was a knock at the door. Varille sat up.

“Come in,” said Varille.

Ziari sat up as the door opened; in came Arana, Queen of Serinne, Varille’s wife, looking unamused about something. But then, she often looked like that.

“Welcome,” said Varille, not bothering to rise, probably because the two weren’t formal with each other in private after nearly fifty years of marriage. Ziari didn’t rise, either, because he was just rude. “I took notes on Ziari’s report—you’ll find them on the desk, if you’d like to look.”

“Sure.” She shut the door and went and picked the report up off Varille’s desk. She not only read silently, she read at least twice as fast as Ziari’s best speed. Almost immediately, it felt like, she set the report back down. She turned the chair around to face the bed and sat down on it. “Thank you, Ziari,” she said with a small and fast-fading smile.

Ziari felt very much as though his heart were melting into a little puddle of contentment. Varille enjoyed his company and Arana was happy with his work and for once everything was completely perfect. He returned Arana’s smile with one of his own, warm and wide.

“Do you have any thoughts on the problem?” Varille asked.

Arana made a thoughtful face. “Of course Ziari will find the people bankrolling this group,” she said, somewhat hesitantly, “but aside from that… not at this scale, no.”

Ziari did not particularly appreciate being told what _of course_ he would or wouldn’t do, particularly not by Arana, who was used to ordering people around. He deliberately kept his breathing even and didn’t let his body tense up in rage. It was a constant battle to maintain his self-control.

“At this scale?” Varille asked.

“It ties into something I’ve been thinking about a lot, which is that just because laws exist doesn’t mean they can be enforced,” said Arana. Ziari listened carefully for something, anything, wrong and in need of correction, or something that would reveal Arana’s ignorance of something Ziari knew about, or… _anything_ , because all he could think of right now was how to embarrass her or remind her that anyone who treated him as inferior would lose his help immediately. But if he just shouted that at her, that would make the wrong person look stupid. “For example… think with me for a moment. Imagine you want to kill someone, without the death being traced back to you. You’re both very intelligent; you have ideas, don’t you? I won’t ask how you’d avoid witnesses. I won’t ask how you’d avoid being seen going on an unexplained errand. I will ask how you would choose the right time.”

“I think it would depend on the person,” said Varille. “I would first consider whether that person was ever alone—say, a widower who lives above his shop, without a family, and would be alone all night.”

“That too,” Arana said dismissively. “What I mean isn’t the time of day. Say it isn’t urgent. Say you can wait a few months, if need be. In that case… maybe I’m the only one who would do it this way, but _I’d_ wait for a stranger to come to town. Then, afterward, everyone will see that there was a crime committed just after the stranger showed up.”

And that would almost guarantee the stranger’s conviction and might get him killed, in areas that didn’t care so much about the official sentencing guidelines.

It wasn’t fair for Arana to make a good point like this and try to distract everyone from what she had just said to—no, not even to, _about_ —Ziari. He would need to get revenge on her somehow. Maybe he could withdraw—no, he couldn’t withdraw to plot vengeance; this was the only place he had any serious expectation of privacy and here she was. Vengeance could come later; first, he needed to give the impression of being useful and intelligent. For now.

“So your point is that in the absence of witnesses, it’s almost impossible to be sure who committed a crime? That’s a problem,” said Varille.

Ziari came up with a brilliant idea and waited just long enough for Arana to start to answer.

“Yes,” she said, “and not just—”

“Oh!” Ziari interrupted her. “That reminds me: do either of you know anyone missing a particolored purse?”

“I might,” said Arana. “Is it red and blue?”

It was. Ziari took it out of his own purse and tossed it to her.

“That’s it,” she said. “Thank you.”

“How did you get that?” Varille asked, which gave Ziari the perfect excuse to keep talking and let Arana stew about how no one was listening to her. Today really was perfect.

“Well,” said Ziari, even drawing out the word a little, “I was out dancing and I got tired and decided to just watch the crowd for a while. Now, while I was watching, I saw a man steal a dancer’s purse.” _A girl,_ he told himself, or else, after four or seven or thirteen tellings, he might forget what he had really seen and start to believe his own lie. “I rounded up a couple men to help me and we looked through that thief’s things. And you know what we found? Not just the dancer’s purse. He’d stolen…” (Ziari told himself _he’d made that girl steal_ ) “…about three or four. So I gave the dancer his and took one for myself and let the men that helped me take the rest. We had witnesses, too. They’ll know he’s a thief. They’ll never forget and he might not dare to come back to Solanne—I don’t think he was from here; I’d say he came in for the fair today.”

“And,” Varille said wryly, “it never occurred to any of you to take him to court. Of course.”

“I thought about it,” said Ziari. “Doing it this way let us take a bigger cut of the stolen goods for ourselves.”

“You know what?” said Arana. “This ties in perfectly to what I was going to say—thank you yet again, Ziari.”

Ziari bit back the urge to scream and ended up laughing instead, long and loud. Of _course_ this would be the _one_ time being around him wasn’t unbearable.

Arana raised her eyebrows but otherwise sat still and waited, just adding insult to injury, which made Ziari laugh even harder.

“Care to explain the joke?” Varille asked.

Ziari shook his head and managed, after a while, to get himself under control. “Sorry, there’s no joke. I’m just a little unbalanced right now—haven’t been home long enough, I think.”

It was an excellent excuse: too much travel and time away from home could drive you mad, it was said, and Ziari had been traveling at Varille’s request, so that made it, in a sense, Varille’s own fault if anything was wrong with Ziari.

Someday, he would slip up without an excuse, of course. Then he’d have to run.

“Well, if I can say something,” said Arana, and then she paused as though waiting for another interruption. Ziari managed, this time, to keep his laughter quiet to let her speak. “Varille, you pointed out that Ziari didn’t take the man to court. It’s… interesting that you’d bother thinking about it. So few criminals, even after they’re found out, are tried by anyone but the community around them, and you’re asking whether things have to be that way, whether they could be different. But you could take your questioning even farther, I think. Ziari, who helped you confront this thief?”

“A man I recognized who works at the castle,” said Ziari. “A man dressed like a priest, claiming to be a priest, with a name and an accent like he’s from Perrau. And the victim, of course.”

“There’s nothing odd about that at all,” said Arana, “but imagine if we lived in the Empire of Rema. Almost a thousand years ago, they had what they called the City Watch—a little like our night watch—who patrolled the capital city on behalf of the emperor and on his orders. They weren’t private citizens; they were salaried guards. They weren’t chosen anew every night—and they didn’t patrol only at night. The citizens got used to trusting and obeying them as agents of the government because they also enforced certain fire-prevention measures, which I’m sure helped, but the most important thing they did was arrest criminals and investigate crimes. To someone living hundreds of years ago in the Empire of Rema, what happened wouldn’t be the only possible response to a crime. It would be downright strange. And it comes to me that this conspiracy is no different from the conspiracy—if you can call it that—of Ziari and the priest and the man who lost his purse. This is… just what happens. People look out for themselves. I wonder if we can really insist that they stop, if there’s no one else who will protect their interests.”

“That sounds ridiculous,” said Ziari. “How did Rema ever make that work? If you pay them a fixed amount just to watch, why should they put themselves in danger? But if you pay them for every criminal caught, they’ll start accusing innocents of crimes that never happened. And if you pay them nothing, why should they do anything for you?”

“I think they might have used slaves,” Arana said doubtfully.

“Even worse,” said Ziari. “Slaves are all slaves for a reason. They might be friends with other criminals. Why turn on their friends? And to deal with criminals, they’ll need to be armed. You want to arm slaves?”

“No,” said Arana. “For those and other reasons, I don’t. I think you’re right, but the alternative is that this very important work is left to whoever happens to be in the right place at the right time. A handful of men getting together to confiscate someone else’s money have as many incentives to do wrong as a City Watch. You could even say that _you_ get paid for every criminal caught.”

“It shouldn’t be too hard to find men of good character—or, at the very least, men of known loyalties,” said Varille. That would have to be a reference to Arana’s gift; she could tell someone’s first loyalty just by looking. (Ziari didn’t want to think too hard about what she might see when she looked at him.) It didn’t always allow her to spot people secretly in the employ of enemies of the crown—not unless they were personally loyal to their masters, rather than to their purses—but it was still a very useful gift for someone in her position. “If you have the funds to start something yourself, you don’t need my permission, though you have it. If you want crown funds, work out how much it will cost, how you’ll choose whom to hire, how they’ll patrol, where they’ll patrol, what they’ll do about fires, how they’ll be trained and by whom, how you’ll judge their performance, what standards you’ll hold them to… you figure all that out first and then we can discuss the matter later. Maybe it will prevent future conspiracies against my peace. For now, I need to deal with the one we’re already facing.”

Arana nodded. “I’ll have a proposal for you soon. Thank you for sharing the report with me, but I have no other ideas for you. Anything else you wanted to discuss?”

“No,” said Varille. “Nothing in particular. Thank you for your ideas.”

With no more but a nod to Varille, Arana got up and left.

“Well, then,” said Varille, once she was gone, “we need to find out who’s bankrolling this conspiracy and devise a suitable punishment… later. You know what? I worked all through last night and now I’m hungry enough to break my fast. You want anything?”

Ziari wondered whether Varille was using this as a test, but doubted that almost immediately; it wasn’t like Varille to do something like that to reveal someone’s weakness; he had other, better ways. Then he considered that he had a habit of panicking—quietly, only for a moment—every time Varille walked away from him, and considered how fragile his own state of mind was right now—or, really, ever, but particularly after so long away from home. If Varille was going to go away and do something else, Ziari didn’t want to be left here while Varille was away in the kitchen. And then there was the fact that Ziari was human and hungry.

“Sure,” he said, “if you’re having something.”

“I’ll go find a servant—there’ll be _someone_ at work today—and tell him to bring something up to us. I’ll be right back,” said Varille, and he got up to leave.

Dread clawed at Ziari’s stomach like a hand made of ice. Varille would absolutely not come back, would walk away from everything and start a new life somewhere else, would be assassinated, would tell his guards to come drag Ziari away to be executed… Ziari took a deep breath. He knew he was an idiot. Knowing, somehow, didn’t help at all.

“Of course you’ll be back,” he said with a fake grin. “Who could stay away from me?”

-~-

The first book that Varille had ever seriously tried to apply to his own life, had ever considered and disagreed with, was a classic work on ethics by Itestalor the ancient sage, who argued that virtue was in emotions and not in actions: a man who feared battle was a coward, and the best he could do by standing his ground was to, possibly, teach himself to become braver later. By Itestalor’s definition, Varille was lustful and lazy, though he worked half of every day _and_ every night.

So once he and Ziari finished their meal—some hard, grainy cheese and weak beer—he felt no guilt at all about lying down beside Ziari for a while, this time less haphazardly. They faced each other, which worked because they kept their weapons on different sides. Ziari smiled; there was a laxness in his smile that might mean he was tired. It would make sense if he were; he’d only had, what, four hours’ sleep since arriving back in Solanne?

Varille reached out slowly toward Ziari, paused, watched for Ziari to move away, and when Ziari didn’t move, Varille rested a hand on his shoulder. Ziari laughed just once, just breath without voice.

“People will keep dying until the conspiracy is dealt with,” Varille murmured, “but I’ll miss you when you’re gone and I’d rather have you stay a while.”

He stopped short of telling Ziari to stay or go; Ziari didn’t care to be told what to do and wasn’t easy to compel in any case. Varille might rather save lives; that might not matter enough to Ziari, and if Varille managed to make him leave, Ziari might never come back. Varille might rather not be… not alone, per se, not in a city with his family, but friendless; Ziari could leave any time he pleased, whether Varille wanted him to or not.

“Which would you rather?” Ziari asked.

“I’d rather have someone else go spy for me and have you stay in Solanne, but we can’t have everything.” Varille smiled wryly. “I’d rather deal with this crisis and not need to deal with another—but another will happen.”

“Some places will keep celebrating till the end of the month,” said Ziari. “That might give a stranger more of an excuse to show up somewhere… but then again, I’m not going as a human and too many people won’t be following their routine, whatever it is. I’ll stay in the city at least another couple of weeks. I can’t say I’ll be sorry to be with you.”

“I won’t be sorry, either,” said Varille. “You’re so… beyond words.”

Ziari snorted. “Or you’re just inarticulate.”

“Oh, well. Whatever I call you, you’ll be just as strong and just as smart either way. Frankly, I don’t think words can describe you.”

“Or you’re just inarticulate,” Ziari repeated. “Someday, people will tell stories about me and then they’ll get poetic and compare me to a ruby—beautiful, unbreakable, red like blood—or maybe to a rose!”

“How will they know to tell those stories when your work is secret?” asked Varille.

Ziari half-shrugged with the shoulder that wasn’t against the bed.

If he was frank with himself, it bothered Varille to have someone spying for him. Of course, he needed to know things, and it was difficult for him to hear most gossip, being who he was; rumors of discontent might very well not reach him until it was too late to fix things otherwise. Still, it was written that great men shouldn’t listen to everything they heard. Better not to go after everyone who ever spoke a word against him—and who would feel comfortable knowing how much Ziari pried into people’s secrets for him?

Well, he’d had enough problems _not_ having Ziari to know it was worth it. There were a great many people who, if they ever knew, would justly feel violated, and that was a cost of his chosen course of action, one he would never deny, at least to himself and the gods… but it was a necessary cost. Besides which, he _wasn’t_ using the information to hunt down everyone who ever complained about him and he could, if he had to, simply say he had ways of hearing rumors. Honest and vague, that would both protect Ziari and give the right general idea to anyone who asked.

Ziari rolled over onto his back and groaned. “I wish I could sleep now so I could be awake with you tonight, but I _can’t_.”

“We’re together now. We have hours yet before midday—plenty of time to sin terribly right before we beg the gods’ forgiveness, don’t you think?” Varille suggested, knowing Ziari might simply be too tired, but hoping anyway.

“No,” said Ziari. Varille told himself there would be another time and was about to think of something else to say when Ziari clarified. “Even if I did respect the gods, I’d never ask forgiveness for something I’m not planning to be sorry for. Let’s definitely not have _regrettable_ sex.”

“So that’s a yes, then?” Varille asked.

Ziari rolled back over onto his side and propped himself up on one elbow. “Well, not if you’re going to go tell Altri how sorry you are. ‘O Lady of Charity, I have made a grave error—I wish I’d never touched Ziari! Oh, I suffer, thinking of how unsatisfying it was! Forgive me! Surely my disappointing sex is penance enough for even so grave an error as this! I beg you have mercy—I’ll never do it again!’”

Varille laughed. “I hadn’t considered telling Altri how much I enjoy what we do.”

“But she knows,” said Ziari. “The gods can see you anywhere, any time. They’re voyeurs. Think of Altri touching herself while she watches us—”

“Don’t,” said Varille. “I mean… please don’t say that. Your blasphemy is making me uncomfortable.”

The smile disappeared from Ziari’s face almost instantly. “I’m sorry,” he said.

There was an uncomfortable silence for a while.

“So, do you still want to…?” Ziari asked.

“Why would I have changed my mind in the time since I suggested it?” Varille wasn’t entirely sure why Ziari doubted that he wanted to do what he just suggested doing. Maybe he was sulking because Varille had just told him not to do something? No, that would explain it if it were Ziari who didn’t want to. Or maybe he expected that Varille would try to punish him by suddenly refusing him, despite Varille knowing that trying that would be one of many very quick ways to drive Ziari away, maybe forever.

Ziari stood up, went to lock the door, then walked back to the desk. He watched the window, facing away from Varille, who sat up to watch him. He unfastened his belt and laid it on the chair in front of Varille’s desk. Then he began to take off his tunic, pulling in first one arm and then the other, like a turtle. Then he slipped it over his head, never needing to turn it inside-out. This he draped over the back of the chair. Then he stood for a while, holding up his right hand so he could examine his bracelet. He always did this for a while.

Varille took the time to think about what he might do to Ziari. It was by virtue of his low position—a masterless vagrant, unwelcome nearly everywhere and for good reason, disqualified from nearly any official office for refusing to do anything so normal and basic as swear fealty to anyone at all—that Ziari had a certain degree of protection: there was no rank Varille could strip from him, not officially, and he already had to deal with the constant suspicion accrued by having no one to vouch for his character. Varille could steal Ziari’s savings—but only as much as Ziari kept here, with him—or try to have him captured or killed—and probably fail and definitely lose all chance of enjoying Ziari’s friendship in the future. So when Ziari said it was a joy to be hurt or to be made use of, that wasn’t out of fear for what Varille might do to him if he refused. Varille was just lucky enough to have befriended a masochist.

Ziari removed his bracelet, which didn’t mean he was ready yet, but did mean he was getting close.

In the spring, their last tryst before Ziari left, Varille had gotten creative with some rope and his furniture and bound Ziari in such a way that to avoid serious damage to his wrists that only his shapeshifting could heal, he had to constantly strain to support himself in an unusual and very uncomfortable position, and Ziari had laughed about that afterward and said it might be fun to try again… but, Varille thought, today would be a bad day for anything that difficult and exhausting.

At the sight of Ziari half-naked and the memory of him trembling with effort, Varille’s body responded readily, and that brought him into a frame of mind where he would consider things he might otherwise not. The thought of paying no heed to Ziari’s exhaustion certainly crossed his mind, but still he wouldn’t. And, likewise, he thought of cutting Ziari open to see what was inside, but that, too, would be a bad idea.

Ziari made an abortive movement as though reaching for his bracelet to put it back on. That he was that unguarded meant he was _very_ close to being ready. He had told Varille once that the only thing that made him himself was that bracelet, that without it he could be anyone at all with no limits in body or mind. He left it behind when he went to spy for Varille, but Varille didn’t generally have the chance to see him then. When Varille had seen Ziari without it, it was always under circumstances like this, and Ziari was generally… less. Not quite incapable of making decisions; if given a goal, he could choose how best to achieve it. Not quite incapable of preferring one thing to another, but so pliant and obedient that he might as well be.

There were a few things Ziari had asked Varille never to do. If Varille tried to keep Ziari from coming back to himself, or if he mentioned anything about Ziari’s spying, or if he used Ziari’s name… Ziari hadn’t specified what the consequence would be, but he often implied that it was his habit to walk away from those who displeased him, to shun them forever after.

Well, nothing both impressive and safe was coming to mind, Ziari was exhausted, Varille was tired himself, and…

Ziari turned to face Varille. His lips parted, but he didn’t speak.

Varille stood, crossed the short distance between them, and reached out to touch Ziari’s cheek. For just a moment, it was only a caress; then he grabbed Ziari’s chin firmly and pulled him into a kiss. Ziari… responded, and only that, answering anything Varille might do, only answering. It was disconcerting, but, Varille knew from experience, more characteristic of Ziari having just entered this… state… than of him comfortably ensconced in it.

Varille tangled his fingers in Ziari’s hair, grabbed, pulled just hard enough to hurt. Ziari broke away from their kiss and let out a long breath that was almost a sigh. He touched Varille’s chest, pulled back far enough to watch Varille’s face—and far enough for Varille to see his, eyebrows raised and tense, mouth open, somewhere between questioning and nervous—trailed his hand slowly downward, his gaze absolutely fixed on Varille’s face.

“I think you have the right idea,” Varille said as Ziari rested his hand tentatively against Varille’s crotch. “Neither of us is up for much else today, I don’t think.”

Ziari smiled, slipped both hands under Varille’s tunic and started undoing the laces of his trousers. Varille could feel his hands through the fabric, slow and careful; meanwhile he pulled his tunic up through his belt, which was tight enough to catch it so that it folded over a couple of times and failed to cover too much.

Varille stepped out of his trousers, folded them once lengthwise, and set them on the bed. They were both half-naked now—different halves (“Try to get my pants off me,” Ziari had once told him, “and I’ll cut your cock off you” and Varille had never been able to get a straight answer about why Ziari preferred that their trysts not be reciprocal)—and Varille found it satisfying that he was wearing exactly what Ziari wasn’t.

“Do you realize,” Varille mused, “that you’re the only person in this room wearing trousers and I’m the only person in this room wearing anything else?”

Ziari giggled, hiding his mouth behind his hand. He made no verbal answer; he never did when he was like this. Rather, he reached out, hesitantly, and didn’t quite touch Varille, but tilted his head and waited, as though asking permission.

“I love you,” Varille said, which was not quite an answer to what wasn’t quite a question.

Ziari gave a voiceless, forceful sigh and cupped Varille’s cheek in his hand. His fingers and palms were smooth and soft as a baker’s.

Varille noticed, again, that Ziari was watching his face intently.

“Well, maybe that’s enough standing here talking about trousers.” He was starting to ache from doing nothing about his arousal; he felt himself drawn to thoughts of violence and torment like an iron filing to a lodestone. It was a bad day to try to make Ziari scream—something Varille had never yet managed—but he reached around behind Ziari’s head and took hold of his hair and yanked hard enough to draw a sudden gasp from Ziari and a hissing, tense exhale.

Varille smiled and breathed deep as though Ziari’s pain were some fragrant flower. Ziari grinned about as hard as was physically possible and threw himself at Varille so hard that Varille stumbled, took a step backward, tried to take a second, ran up against his bed, and didn’t so much choose to sit down as fall and land on a conveniently soft surface. That wasn’t an entirely unwelcome development and neither was Ziari ending up awkwardly draped over him, comfortingly heavy and close.

Ziari pulled away, sat down on the floor and wedged himself between Varille’s knees. He rested his cheek against Varille’s thigh; his face was warm with the bright red blush building under his skin. Lightly, he stroked Varille’s penis; then his hand hovered just an inch or so away, teasing.

“What, are you trying to make me do this myself?”

Ziari bit his lower lip and looked as though he were concentrating hard on something. He gave Varille another very light stroke with the tips of his fingers, lingered around the tip and made Varille shiver and gasp. Then he drew back again. Varille found himself torn between grin and grimace, yearning for more—Ziari was just so _beautiful_ —and finally settled into the role of predator, to take and enjoy what he liked.

Varille took him by the hair again, pulled his head up. “I’d rather your mouth now,” he said and it wasn’t a request. Ziari complied. Varille was of a size that any man of antiquity would have envied, was proportioned like an ancient marble statue of some great hero, and Ziari took all of him in his mouth.

Varille reached down, stroked Ziari’s back, then dug in his nails just for the pleasure of doing whatever he wanted to Ziari’s smooth, perfect flesh. Ziari made a little surprised sound; Varille laughed, to have provoked it; Ziari sighed contentedly.

He had Ziari, for the moment, in his hands like a musician with a psaltery, creating something like a tune to please himself and glorying in his own power. He drew a delightful variety of soft sounds from Ziari—and when Ziari shivered or went still or started to pull away, Varille demanded in a quiet voice that he keep going. And Ziari did, tenderly and carefully, sometimes with a little pleased “hm” at Varille’s orders.

Varille drew a difficult breath into a body that was trying to tense up all over, from his curling toes to his tightly-shut eyes. His breath caught for a moment and Ziari made an excited sound like a child presented with a new toy.

Ziari’s steady tonguing, maintained with an awesome endurance through any and all provocation, seemed unlikely to bring him over the edge. Varille told him “not so gentle” and Ziari obeyed and that was enough; Varille came. Ziari swallowed and didn’t stop immediately; he licked slowly once more all the way around the circumference, with a sigh that was almost a sob, then, finally, let go and pulled away. He looked over his shoulder at his discarded clothing, then at Varille, then gathered his feet under him as though about to stand. He breathed the deep, too-careful way of someone deliberately not crying.

“I wouldn’t keep you against your will,” said Varille, “but as long as you want to be mine, I’ll have you.”

Ziari sighed and settled back down, all his muscles going lax. He rested his head on Varille’s thigh again, as though he needed the support. His breathing ceased to be careful and intentional; it settled into the steady pattern of someone almost asleep.

“You all right?” Varille asked, stroking Ziari’s hair—softly now, sweetly.

Ziari made a sustained soft sound that, though in pitch and timbre it wasn’t at all comparable, somehow reminded Varille of nothing so much as a purring cat.

-~-

The next day, Ziari left the castle in the morning, well after sunrise, and went to renew some acquaintances.

Almost immediately, two women standing and talking in the street, spinning yarn, noticed him; one said something quiet to the other and their conversation stopped. Ziari casually looked away and walked on. A little while later, he noticed one of the women again as she walked past him. She apparently suddenly remembered something and doubled back, glancing at him as she passed by again. Ziari carefully didn’t smile to himself. No one in Solanne whom he knew to be spying on him was very good at it, but then, he could hardly expect to be aware of being tailed by competent spies.

Ignoring them and their attempt to figure out… whatever they wanted to figure out—probably whether he was plotting something nefarious, but maybe how he kept appearing and disappearing—he went first to visit someone called Lop, who was not a friend but was someone Ziari was carefully allowing to believe he was.

Lop was at work, on the ground floor of his house, marking leather where the seams should go. He looked up at the chime of the bell hanging from his front door and smiled at Ziari.

“Morning, Ziari,” he said. “Good to see you back in Solanne.” He looked back down at his work and kept going.

“Morning! How’ve you been?”

“Pretty well. Got a big order yesterday and I’ll be working dawn to dusk the rest of the month to finish it in time. Means I’ll be sure of a full belly all Joial, at least.” Joial was the next month, the current one being Tural. “I hear Sir Mesend’s moving to Supran. Of course, he’s taking Leusi with him, and that means Livenelle has to go, too, and she was crying about that day before yesterday.”

“Where in Supran?”

“Enna, I think,” he said. “So where were you?”

“Laurens in Perrau,” said Ziari. “I fixed a friend’s roof. I wish I’d had the chance to see Perrau City while I was there—I want to see if I can get into Merri’s library someday. She has the second volume of Chareo’s Letters and I’ve wanted to read it since I read the first one years ago.”

“His Grace doesn’t have it?”

“He has the first, not the second. I think he wants to have someone copy Merri’s.” Ziari didn’t bother to call Merri by her title. She was the Palatine of Perrau, answerable only to the crown. “That’s probably the only way I’ll ever get to read it.” Or by impersonating someone who would be allowed in. “Well, I’m not done with Varille’s library yet, anyway. Did you know seven of his books are in Serinnaise?”

“They write books in Serinnaise?”

“Rarely. I bet I could get permission to borrow one and come read it to you while you work some time.”

“Would I understand any of them, or is it all ‘so like Itestalor says, it’s all just like this thing they had in the Empire, but remember what, uh, some other writer says’ so being in Serinnaise wouldn’t help?”

“I think you’d understand Taver of Solanne’s Journey East.”

“Maybe someday.”

“Any time I’m in town. So tell me, anything else happen while I was gone?”

“Not much. You know how it is—nice towns have no news. Oh, I did get a visit from a friend from out of town. He gave me a new belt as a present—very nice tooling; it’s got roses and daisies on it—except it’s a little too big for me and I already have one anyway. You in the market for a nice belt?”

“Nah, not today. Thanks, though.”

“Any time.”

Lop was quiet for a moment.

“Anyway,” said Ziari, “I was on my way to get something to eat.” Since the castle never served breakfast. “Want me to bring you anything?”

“If you get me a pie from Jehan’s, tell him—never mind, he won’t believe I said you can put yours on my tab. Or that the second one’s for me. I…”

“I don’t think I’ll have any problem with that,” said Ziari. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

Ziari left and wasn’t immediately sure who was watching him. He figured out it was Colinet mostly because Colinet had done it so often before, although he gave a very good impression of not noticing Ziari today, being totally focused on his own errands.

He stopped by the bakery, a stone building in the middle of town where Jehan made and sold a variety of breads and pies both sweet and savory, and rented oven space to anyone looking to make their own, and bought two fish pies and settled Lop’s tab while he was there. He took the pies back to Lop’s and left one for Lop to eat when he got around to taking a break, then headed for the town square to find a particular woman sitting around selling yarn. Whenever her hands weren’t occupied taking payment or anything like that, she picked up her drop spindle and made a little more.

When she had a moment without customers to entertain, Ziari stopped by and looked at her yarn consideringly. “That’s a nice shade—Livenelle, right?”

“Yes,” she said, frowning suspiciously at him. “And you’re Ziari, I think?”

“I am. I heard you were leaving town.”

“Moving all the way to Enna,” she said rather forlornly.

“Oh, Enna! I’ve been there.”

She looked hopeful. “Tell me about it?”

“The people are nice. It’s up in the mountains—I always sleep better in the mountains for some reason. Most people there speak Serinnaise well enough you’ll be able to buy and sell things and make friends. Liaten’s an ugly language and you _can_ get by without speaking it, but if you want to learn it, it’s not hard to pronounce or anything. Oh, I don’t know if this is still true, but it used to be that it was a very safe place _and_ had pretty lenient laws. If you break one by accident you’ll probably be all right. They don’t worship any gods you won’t have heard of, though they don’t care as much for Liven and Altri as people do here. That what you wanted to know?”

“I suppose. I still won’t know anyone…”

“Make friends with Grimoald the tailor if he’s still around. He’s very nice and knows a lot of people. His daughter Lavelle is also a nice person, very generous and fun to talk to. She’s literate and last time I was there she was considering becoming one of Altri’s clerics. Zara the fletcher, when I knew him, was much nicer than he seemed and if you put the effort in to get to know him, I don’t think you’ll regret it. Lugi the jeweler, on the other hand, seems nice but can’t be trusted—or couldn’t when I knew him. This is all years out of date, though.”

“Thank you so much.”

“It’s my pleasure; I have fond memories of Enna.”

“Is it all very steep and hard for wagons to get to?”

“Yes, and the streets twist and turn more than anywhere else I’ve ever seen. It’s very safe that way, you know, if any pirates come raiding along the coast.”

“That’s…” Livenelle pulled her mouth to one side.

“It’s a mixed blessing.”

“Yes. Would you like any yarn while you’re here?”

“I have a friend who’d love that blue wool if I got it for him but I really can’t afford it.”

“Suppose I sell it to you for half price—I think I owe you,” she said.

“How much would that be?”

The price he ended up paying was about three quarters of what he’d normally expect yarn like that to sell for, not half, but he pretended not to know that and thanked her and went back to the castle to copy books until he’d made up for the expenses of the day; as long as he’d spent too much to just bribe the kitchen staff to give Morelet the day off he couldn’t give him the yarn yet anyway. The time he spent copying books was horrible, intensely boring and lonely, so much so that he yearned for death after no more than an hour, but he kept all trace of that off his face and endured a few hours of it most days he was in Solanne. It paid enough to be worth it.


	2. Chapter 2

_To use her gift brought burning pain_  
_In all the flesh she changed_  
_While slowly she reshaped her skin_  
_And bones she rearranged._

…

_She could not bear to change again,_  
_She feared it more than death._  
_A woman in that seaside tower,_  
_She took her final breath._

—The Ballad of Lelinne the Shapeshifter, traditional Serinnaise ballad

Ziari was, and was also not, Ziari. Without his bracelet—which wouldn’t fit around his wing, anyway—he could just as easily become anyone or anything. His soul held its shape like a pile of feathers on a windless day, for lack of any reason to change.

He had settled into the unfettered, lonely emptiness of the raven’s road, spending half his time perched near merchants and conspirators, and the other half soaring on wings of night, master of the sky, a joy that balanced exactly against being cut off from all mankind and made these days neither better nor worse than staying in Solanne—and beneath him he watched a man who gave orders to a man who gave orders to a man who was the conspirator Ziari had started by following.

Today, Ziari thought, the man would turn south toward Marni in the Supran Basin, which, Ziari told himself, wasn’t really Liat.

On land sacred to Liat the god, but won by some Serinnaise king as spoils of war—in other words, right around the border between the two countries—they came to the crossroads, where a narrow meandering dirt track between two fields of growing rye branched into two halves. Half turned sharply toward the south and continued in a southeasterly direction toward the Aurin Pass; the other half continued, just about straight ahead, a little north of due east through the fertile south of Liat. Ziari, perched on an apple tree right on the edge of the northern field, preened nervously as the merchant didn’t direct his horse to turn, and didn’t turn, and drew on toward the northern fork and still didn’t turn.

Liat. He was entering Liat. Ziari knew this road, knew what horrors waited some leagues on, and found his fragile bird body trembling all over in terror. He kept his feet firmly around the branch and watched as the merchant went on.

He had two choices now: he could go on ahead, with nothing to keep him safe or sane or even himself, to face the dangers that had broken Tinalu in mind and body (though, shapeshifter that he was, his body had recovered)… or else he could give up pursuit. This man certainly mattered a great deal more than the worthless lowlifes the conspiracy was using as brigands, but Ziari didn’t think he was right at the top. Maybe it would be a strong enough signal to attack this man—Grimoald of Perrau—for his part in the conspiracy; maybe it would convince the rest of them to stop or, by taking one link out of the chain of command, get in the way of their communications.

Maybe it would work.

And maybe it wouldn’t be enough.

What if he had to explain to Varille why they couldn’t destroy the conspiracy? What then, when he wasn’t good enough?

Ziari had two choices now: brave a land of bad men ruled by worse lords, through which no good could pass undimmed, or leave Varille. And put that way, it was clear which choice he had to take. Decision made, Ziari took wing.

-~-

Ziari was a raven, he reminded himself over and over again, a wild animal not subject to the rule of men. They might kill him because, being wild, he could not be commanded… but they would never command him, never control him or punish him, nor would they even try. He was no man—wasn’t even a dog or a pig, safe and obedient—and he was free and they could kill his body but that was all.

Grimoald came to a small town of maybe seven hundred people, someplace Ziari had never been. Never.

But there was wind, to blow that heap of feathers, and how many could it lose before it was no longer the same heap?

But surely, surely Ziari wouldn’t become a dead man. Tinalu was _dead_ —and even if this wasn’t Ziari proper, the Ziari who would wake in Solanne with all his fragile self manacled to him by his bracelet, still he was closer to that Ziari than he was to anyone else.

It was a town of men, not of ravens. He watched Grimoald trade while he was there, on his way elsewhere to greater towns and bigger markets. He watched customers enter and leave a tailor’s, but Ziari did not know the tailor, had never met him. He watched a prostitute looking for clients until he realized, from her manner and the way she drawled her words, that she was a fugitive from the countryside, and then he stopped watching her and refused to think about what would happen to her when she was recaptured.

He watched a hanging, watched the dead man dangle like the fruit of an evil tree that only Liat’s soil could nurture.

Ziari grew distant, until even the sky he flew through and the wings that carried him felt far away. He wasn’t here; this wasn’t real; it was like a play; it was like there was a river between him and the world. If his eyes had been a window he leaned out of to see the world up close, now they were a window he watched warily from across the room, as far away as he could get.

Grimoald traveled on, ever eastward, toward Verula. He might not know that was where he was going; it was a small village. It would, in fact, be some ways away from this road. It was almost certainly not his destination. Still, though: he was heading for Verula.

He passed up a chance to turn sharply north and kept going.

Ziari felt as though eyes were on him constantly. Lord Indisi’s eyes, knowing him—no, not knowing; mistaking him for someone else—possessive, anticipating the recovery of lost property.

Indisi was even deader than Tinalu—had actually died bodily, unlike Tinalu—and there was no reason his heir should know that any raven in particular was Ziari, and no reason that he should ever know Ziari’s relation to his runaway subject.

In much the same way that a strong man can carry ten stone on his shoulders, but not hold it out steady in front of him, Ziari couldn’t pass slowly by Verula. He was going to fail, no matter what, at the task he had set out to do, but when he left Grimoald behind, he didn’t head for Serinne. He flew over strip fields in a familiar pattern—wheat, pasture, fallow, rye, pasture, fallow, more rye, pasture, fallow, beans, pasture—where serfs with skirts hiked up were already harvesting some (not all) of their crops. (Tinalu used to take such pride in how fast and efficient he was with a scythe.)

Almost empty of people, the village of Verula arrayed itself in almost a circle with one opening ( _that spot’s cursed; everyone that builds there dies of cancer_ , Alo said), like a mouth waiting to devour the unwary. The bleak, cramped daub-and-wattle huts rose from the ground like pustules, casting shade on the square at almost any hour. Everything was as it had been, as though nothing had changed— _you’re part of Verula and Verula’s part of you—it’s not a matter of letting you; you couldn’t leave anyway_ and if Tinalu had listened they wouldn’t have dragged him back and cut off his hands right there in front of the smithy.

The skeleton was the last thing he noticed, but there was one. It had been left untouched, apparently where the body had been placed, in the square. A placard had been hung around its neck for the benefit of the one man in the village who could read, and anyone who might listen to him; _hid a fugitive_ , it said.

His courage failed him; he banked one wing, turned in the air and flew into the setting sun. The wind caught his feathers and carried them away.

-~-

Leusi, a tall man whose gift was that he had a sense of smell to rival a bloodhound—easy for a shapeshifter to arrange, and a real gift that someone might have—nervously waited to take part in his first ambush as part of the Sons of the Sacred Peace, a brotherhood sworn to keep the roads open and the sea safe for godly ships, against all threats great and small, from the heathen pirates of the Nilkot Empire in the east and Narvage in the far north to the ordinary land-based bandits driven only by greed. This ambush was set up to catch and punish a traveling Lanian trying to get to Laurens by winter, because the Lanians had turned against all godly virtue and sided with the Nilkot Empire. The Lanians had barely withdrawn at all from Nilkot—besides moving the High Priest as far west as Attreton, that is—and unlike those of the other gods of the west, Lani’s temples were unmolested in exchange for a tenth of all offerings they received. Traitors they were to all the thirteen Godly Virtues, strengthening the Nilkot pirates who had sworn to stop any and all followers of any and all of the western gods from sailing the southern sea.

It was a little bit beyond Leusi’s ken, but he understood that the Lanians were giving money to bad people who wanted to make sure no one could buy goods from far away. So, Leusi understood, it was good to hurt them. So Leusi was a useful part of a righteous brotherhood, and he would do anything to be worthy of their welcome.

This was the best spot on this road to set up an ambush; the terrain in Sarn and Perrau weren’t great for that at all—mostly fields and very flat—but along this particular not-very-well-maintained stretch of road half a league from Laurens, someone had planted a surprising number of apple trees. The reason had something to do with the old Empire, but Leusi didn’t really understand what that had to do with anything.

Anyway, there were apple trees along this stretch of road and some of the year’s very last crop of wheat almost ready for harvest on one side of the road just behind the row of apple trees. There were four of them springing this ambush: Leusi was furthest from Laurens, hiding in the wheat with a borrowed longbow in hand; to his left were Lothair and Jehan, two brothers from the nearby countryside; across the road was Taver of Perrau (one of what had to be a thousand people in Serinne named Taver). They had all memorized each other’s positions to avoid accidentally shooting each other.

Through the strong scent of windfall apples and mud, and the somewhat more distant scents of cider and blood, when the wind turned, Leusi caught the scents of men, no horses, carrying… pies, maybe? And candles, or wax for candles? At this point, Leusi was supposed to give a warning that the Lanians—who else would be carrying candles?—were getting close.

Instead, he shed his identity like a snake shedding skin. He didn’t change his body—no need, and it would hurt—but inside he became a hunting lynx who lusted for human blood.

He moved carefully, slowly, a foot out of position, as silent as he could manage. Nocked an arrow, drew, loosed—a scream came from elsewhere in the wheat—he fumbled with the other arrow, had _seen_ people shoot ten arrows into the air at once, but never had enough time to learn—an arrow flew through the wheat from Lothair’s position, just missed him, would have hit his chest if he hadn’t moved.

He shot his second arrow, heard it hit, heard Jehan fall. An arrow—from Taver, judging by the angle—buried itself in his arm; two others passed him by. Taver _could_ get several arrows flying at once. The lynx got down on hands and knees and started shifting—should’ve done it sooner!—hardening his skin into a shell around his back and chest. He curled up tight—two more arrows passed above him—and hardly noticed the pain of shapeshifting. And now what? Another arrow—this one cut through his tunic but failed to pierce his shell. He should have planned this better. Taver knew exactly where he was and was going to drag him away, cut off his hands and put out his eyes—no, that was ridiculous; Taver was going to kill him here and now, he knew that, he did know it—Taver could drag him back to Verula—not back; he had never been—no, yes, he had been to Verula, but only once.

He was going to die here and be left in someone’s field and buried with the wrong face and no name at all and Varille would think Ziari had abandoned him—but he couldn’t be Ziari, not here, not without the bracelet. Maybe he would die. Maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing. At least—he smirked, thinking of it—he had killed Jehan and Lothair. It was only a shame he couldn’t see their red blood soaking into the dirt, couldn’t devour their still-warm flesh. Still, it wasn’t the worst ending for a beast like him.

All the while he thought that, Taver shot no arrows.

Why not? Why the reprieve? He wondered if he could run. No, not without more of a shell than he had—maybe his thighs, his head… what about his heels? Footsteps. The Lanians? No, just one pair. Taver? He raised himself a little, uncurled a little so he could reach his hand under his body—the arrow knocked against the ground, shifted inside him—he found his knife on his left hip—the wrong hip and he took it in the wrong hand, because Leusi was right-handed—gathered himself into a crouch and waited. It _felt_ like half a minute, but probably wasn’t anywhere near that long, before Taver came upon him there and both of them struck at once. Taver’s knife hit and scraped along the lynx’s back; the lynx leapt up and forward and drove his knife into Taver’s thigh, high up near the groin. Blood soaked into Taver’s trousers and covered the lynx’s face and arm and shoulders. The lynx licked it off his lips as they both fell to the ground, Taver dead.

-~-

The lynx’s face when he next met Grimoald was luminescent, glowing in strange patterns that looked like runes made of light, but weren’t any language that really existed. In lieu of nails, his fingers ended like a cat’s, with retractable claws. His ears were on top of his head, triangular and furred, poking out through hair the black of a raven’s feathers—black with a blue gleam in the right light—and the pupils of his yellow eyes were vertical slits. He was naked except for his fur, which looked at first glance almost like some sort of garment, but wasn’t; silky black fur covered his shoulders, his chest and back, and down his legs as far as his knees. His hands, too, were furred halfway to the elbow. The hair on his scalp was short enough to see where his ears would have been, should have been if he were human. His spine extended into a long white-tipped black tail.

It was the work of several hours of painful sculpting, during which he had occasionally had to remind himself that, no, he was not being maimed, which would be far less painful.

Grimoald was on the road, westward bound, mounted on a horse that reared and threatened to throw him when it saw the lynx.

The lynx smiled, showing his fangs, while he watched Grimoald get the horse under control. Their fear was like water to a man dying of thirst.

“I’d like to talk with you,” the lynx said. Grimoald watched him with wide eyes. “I am the spirit of the lynxes who once roamed the forests of the west—once did, and will again. You have displeased me.”

“You… you’re a man in strange clothes in disguise… or that’s your gift; your gift is that you’re like a cat…”

“Then believe I’m a man with a gift you know nothing about.” The lynx shrugged. “It doesn’t matter who you think I am. What you need to know is that you’ve angered me and why. You have broken the peace—I do like peace—with your attacks on travelers. Retribution is upon you. Already one of my human… _catspaws_ , if you’ll allow me my little joke…” and here the lynx held up one hand and extended his claws one by one before finishing: “…has slain three of your brothers. Stop killing travelers. My _next_ vengeance won’t be against your worthless lowlife soldiers; it will be against someone who makes the decisions. Maybe someone like Mesend. Maybe someone like you. Look, Grimoald, you’re mostly attacking travelers in that human country called ‘Serinne’, aren’t you? If you have some problem with those travelers, why don’t you take them to court? If it’s some matter of human politics… say, you worry they’re allied with dangerous and evil people… why not take your concerns to one of your human kings, who would surely worry as much as you do about having evil people in his lands?”

Grimoald laughed. “You know a bit more about human politics than you admit, but now I believe you’re really a lynx spirit. A man who knew as much as you would understand why we can’t reveal ourselves—and can’t bring our concerns to any king without revealing ourselves.”

“Explain.”

Grimoald shook his head. “No, I won’t. You know our membership, you understand human politics well enough that you _surely_ know who the Losa are, and you still don’t understand why we need to hide? Or who we’re hiding ourselves from? I don’t think any explanation would be enough for you. You’re… too inhuman. No, lynx, we can’t do as you say. But we don’t need to, to please you. You don’t care about the courts. You don’t care about the Lanians, either—not in themselves. You care that they oppose logging in the Northwood. Well, I’ll tell my brothers about this conversation and I think they’ll probably be willing to agree to a deal: you turn those fangs and claws against the bandits that make traveling so unsafe for us and we’ll do what we can to protect the Northwood for your use. I’ll ask them. You go home now and make your forest safe for our use and we’ll have no reason to support logging there. I’m sure I’ll convince my brothers to agree to use any influence we have to prevent it.”

The lynx thought for a while about what Ziari would do with this information when he woke. He couldn’t bind Ziari to do anything in particular, but he could predict that Ziari would want to cooperate, would wish the lynx had cooperated. Then he considered himself. It would be the capstone to a perfect life—or phase of life; Ziari might let him live again someday—to dig his fangs deep into the horse’s throat and taste its salty blood, to triumph over something so much bigger than he was, and then to capture Grimoald and kill him slowly by breaking every bone in his body. Maybe he would laugh as he dug the cracked bones out of his flesh and ate the marrow.

Maybe he could dig one of Grimoald’s smaller bones out first—one of the ones in his palm, maybe—and crack it open and force Grimoald to eat the marrow.

Ziari would kill himself if someone he created and allowed to take his body did anything like that (which would probably be best for the world and best for Ziari and pleasing to all the gods) and the lynx didn’t really want to die—bodily, that is; he wouldn’t mind being someone else, the lynx dead for all practical purposes, if the body survived, if the person he became could be happy. And he couldn’t just not change back. His soul was the same defective one Tinalu had been born with that couldn’t hold a personality. He would change. He would lose his interest in violence and care about something else and become someone else, whether he wanted to or not. Only Ziari had the bracelet with the cat’s fang that held him in place and kept him from changing. Funny that the cat’s fang was Ziari’s… but not that funny; it came from a small cat, the sort that knew how to cooperate (and rarely, but not never, did) and sometimes liked to be petted and loved. The lynx was just a monster.

Ziari could probably last longer before finally being shot like the wild animal he was, because he, at least, wasn’t a monster. He could pretend. He could bide his time. He could convince a town to (temporarily) tolerate him, sometimes for multiple years at a stretch. So the lynx shouldn’t do anything that would make Ziari kill himself.

So he agreed to the deal and set off on the trip back to Solanne.


	3. Chapter 3

_Rye plants, rye plants,_  
_Little like children,_  
_Through the summer they will grow_  
_Taller than our houses_

—Sanki Karunen, traditional Liaten folk song, translated from the Liaten

It was almost sunset when Varille came into his own bedroom to find Ziari lying in bed, dressed, staring at the ceiling, cradling his right wrist and his bracelet in his left hand.

Something about his posture seemed uncharacteristic, as did the slight but noticeable pause before Ziari turned his head to see Varille, and the additional pause before he spoke. “I have a report to give,” he said in a flat, emotionless voice.

He must be very tired, Varille concluded; no point in asking him for anything but the most essential information before he had a chance to sleep. He’d probably spent all day resuming his preferred shape and the night traveling and who knew when he’d last had a chance to rest?

Varille got paper and ink and quill ready, then lit the four-wicked candle he kept on his desk for just this reason, set up the concave mirror to shine that light right onto his paper, and finally asked Ziari to begin, which Ziari did.

“I found a man and followed him to another man, but I see no reason to tell you about the people who just do what they’re told. The second man led me to Mesend, a trader who spends most of his life carrying salt fish from Solanne to Sarn and dried fruits and wheat from Sarn to Solanne. Mesend led me to Grimoald, who… if I had to compare the conspiracy to a country, I think Grimoald would be something like a lord. I tried to follow Grimoald, but lost him somewhere in Liat. I decided that the best thing to do next would be to infiltrate the conspiracy, so I did, under a false name and face. I killed three members—”

Varille had very much not meant for that to happen. “Which three? How? Why?”

“Which three won’t mean anything to you. They were Taver, Jehan and Lothair, and out of those names only Lothair’s not the name of ten men in every city in Serinne. How, by shooting two and stabbing one. Why, because I thought it’d be best to put an end to their banditry quickly. Then I spoke to Grimoald and he said he knew my concern was about the Northwood and offered to use any influence he had to oppose logging there if I got rid of the bandits making it too dangerous to travel through. For… reasons… I told him I’d do that. But… there were stranger things that I learned.”

Ziari paused, as though getting his thoughts in order. Varille came almost to the end of that last sentence, dipped his quill, then finished and waited to hear more.

“The Sons of the Sacred Peace tell their recruits they protect all the roads and all the seas against all threats. They claimed to be worried about the Nilkots and they said that the Lanians are traitors—the Nilkots burn other temples, but not temples to Lani, because they pay a special tax. According to the Sons of the Sacred Peace, they should take a stand on principle… or something. I’m not sure that’s their only reason—I think I succeeded in convincing Grimoald that I already knew every member of his organization, or nearly everyone. He said if I knew that and who the Losa are, it goes without saying why the Sons of the Sacred Peace can’t just be open about their existence and ask for help from the kings of the lands they operate in.”

Varille finished writing all of that down, wondering if he should have guessed that. The Losa were refugees—for good reason; no one wanted them—who kept to themselves in small enclaves and worked as merchants primarily because no guilds would accept them as members. Their agreement with the crown of Serinne was that they were answerable directly, and only, to the crown, and did not need to become part of any town or manor community, but were therefore expected to maintain order among themselves and pay rather substantial taxes directly to the crown.

The sort of people who could easily be convinced to do anything in Taverie’s name would generally not tell a Losa what day it was if asked politely. Varille was very aware of his own people’s reluctance to deal with them, because it was frustrating his attempts to encourage friendship between the Serinnaise and the Losa, or any relationship at all other than constant fear and suspicion.

“Did Grimoald look like a Losa to you?” Varille asked.

“No, but you can’t be _sure_. Oh! And I witnessed Jehan, Taver and Lothair trying to ambush some traveling Lanians. They didn’t succeed, but they were planning to.”

Varille made a note of that, too. “So,” he said, “thank you for your report. In the future, I’d rather you didn’t do what you describe having done. Did you tell Grimoald you were working for me?”

“No.”

That might even be worse. “Did you tell him you were working for the Lanians?”

“No,” said Ziari. “Stop asking.”

“I’m sure you understand why I’m seriously concerned about what you did or didn’t say to Grimoald,” said Varille.

“I just told you to stop asking. I am _not_ your servant and _not_ going to answer just because you ask nicely, and I hate—” Ziari cut himself off. “I mean… I can’t tell you because… well, I have reasons and you don’t need to know. Right now.” The last two words seemed to be an afterthought, as though Ziari had realized too late that “you don’t need to know” wasn’t what he meant to say.

It was at this point that Varille started considering explanations for Ziari’s behavior beyond tiredness. He hated that the first possibility that came to mind was betrayal, but that was the sort of thing he had to be alert for. It made a sick sort of sense—lying now, about gods-knew-what, possibly having deliberately convinced the secret conspiracy that Varille had ordered assassinations without due process—at least in some ways. In others, it made no sense at all. Regardless, it would be simple and easy to test the idea, rather than allow it to take root and gnaw at him; he had only hired Ziari because Arana’s gift revealed that he had fallen in love with Varille halfway through their first conversation, and both he and Arana had been expecting Ziari’s love to die just as suddenly as it bloomed.

No need to worry about how logical the idea was or wasn’t when he could test his concerns so quickly and easily.

“I’d like to consult with Arana,” said Varille, standing and turning to face the door. “I’ll go—“

Ziari sat bolt upright.

Varille’s worries began to seem well-founded.

“Don’t you want to talk about the bandits in the Northwood first?” Ziari asked.

“No,” said Varille. “Not right now.”

There was a long moment where Varille wondered if he would have to draw his sword. Then Ziari, saying nothing, lay back down and started sobbing. Varille watched his spy, still uncertain, until he saw actual tears start to fall. He would very much have liked to do something to comfort Ziari—but then, that reaction was more incriminating than the inexplicability of his initial behavior.

He went to find Arana.

-~-

Ziari curled up into a little ball. Varille was angry about the killing, Ziari knew, so angry he would never want to see Ziari again, would send him back to Verula. That wasn’t quite right—something didn’t make sense, sounded insane even as he thought it—but Ziari couldn’t even imagine another possibility. His welcome had run out, had always been finite, always conditional on never showing what he really was inside. Varille hated him. He could barely think. There was no hope anymore. His body, of its own accord, curled up as though he were trying to protect himself, arms over his head, most of his squishiest parts hidden. He felt an urge to scream and refused to let his voice rouse the whole castle; his mouth opened anyway and his breath came in a long, sustained, silenced stream. They were going to take him to Verula and Varille hated him and he was a monster and he’d revealed it and Varille could never forgive him now that Ziari’s twisted nature had come to light.

He had to die. Several years ago, he’d promised himself, after a few ill-advised and unsuccessful attempts, that he would wait a day from making the decision to taking his life; right now it was a little after sunset, so he would wait till after sunset tomorrow.

He was so distracted with his own misery that he didn’t notice Arana until she spoke.

“No, same as always,” she said. “So maybe worry about… that.”

“Oh,” said Varille. “Thank you.” Ziari did pay as much attention as he could to Varille, who sounded almost sheepish for some reason.

Varille sat down on the bed. Arana’s footsteps receded; she shut the door behind her and kept walking.

“I’m sorry,” said Varille. “Sometimes I have to be a bit paranoid. You… well. I suppose that what I worried about first… says something.”

It wasn’t quite accurate to say that Ziari couldn’t understand. He knew what all those words meant. He knew that Varille was apologizing to him… but it was in the same way that he might have “known” that Varille was polishing his square triangle made of smooth furry metal, if he had heard that such a thing was happening.

“Is there any way I can help you?” Varille asked. That made about as much sense as an apology.

“Help? With what? Why?”

“Because you’re clearly miserable. Why, and can I do anything?”

Ziari didn’t know how to answer—would failure to answer get him killed? Was Varille going to be angrier? Was he going to be taken back to Verula?

That still sounded insane even as he couldn’t think of anything else. He had to somehow find some hidden reserve of finesse _right now_ and try to salvage this situation—at least well enough not to end up back in Verula like he deserved—and he couldn’t possibly, but…

“I don’t know the answer to that,” said Ziari, who didn’t even understand the question and couldn’t imagine what kind of statement could be an answer. “Ask me later.” No, wait, that was too demanding, Varille was a king, he was going to end up maimed for that—no, that was absurd. Varille was kind. He would never. He was a good man, he was wise, he would _never_ do _anything_ to hurt anyone under him, and Ziari wasn’t even under him.

But what if he realized Ziari didn’t count and that it was inherently good to hurt Ziari?

Varille didn’t seem interested in pushing the matter—by the sound of it, he was sitting down at his desk to read something. He would probably just as soon never see Ziari again. He clearly hated Ziari and had obviously decided that, having no actual obligations toward Ziari, he would just pretend Ziari no longer existed and—

Time to calm down. He recited dry facts silently to himself about anything that came to mind, from the Litany of Godly Virtue ( _…Lani commands us to face our mistakes; Dalire loves endurance through hardship and pain…_ ) to Serinne’s complicated system of nobility ( _the palatines answer to the crown for one of the seven regions, except for the two that are ruled by princes instead; then there are the mesne lords who are distinguished from knights by their right to…_ ) and after a while he felt a lot calmer. So he tried to pick apart what was happening, what had just happened.

That turned out to be a mistake. (Knights had no right to grant their tenants titles of nobility, unlike lords; that was suitably boring and distracting. And serjeants were like knights in rank, but not on the battlefield… or something; Ziari didn’t fully understand the difference.) When he was calm _again_ , he sat up and tried to think of some discreet way to check whether Varille hated him. He couldn’t ask—people hated to be asked “do you hate me?” and the answer would _become_ yes when he asked, though sometimes people would then lie to keep him calm (to keep themselves safe) before sending him away or running away themselves. But if he had some other way to check… maybe by getting Varille to imply, or _not_ imply, that he wanted Ziari to do something differently in the future—which he wouldn’t if they had no future together.

“So,” said Ziari, “you… wanted to talk to me about what I did to the Sons of the Sacred Peace?”

Varille turned, putting one arm over the back of his chair. The light was on his desk—and, dimly, outside his window—so his face was in shadow, haloed by light that kept Ziari from getting used to the darkness. Ziari’s face, meanwhile, was at the right angle to catch the candlelight, and would be clear to Varille.

He waited and forced himself to breathe evenly until Varille answered.

“I think that might be a bad idea right now.”

That hit Ziari like a fist to the gut. Knocked the wind out of him, almost literally; it was a while before he could breathe. He had a moment where the pain was so intense he didn’t notice it; his mind just slid off it, like looking away from something right in front of him. He used that moment to plan his reaction—or rather, his _lack_ of visible reaction—and then the horror of it finally reached him.

It was like grasping a hot coal and needing to flinch, but there was no way to flinch away from losing Varille.

He absolutely had to calmly and carefully consider what to do. Had to.

All was lost. He could never recover from this. All was lost.

He felt the reflex to flinch run through his whole body and suppressed it, which only added to the pain. All was lost.

He stood and turned away from Varille, facing the door. Silently, he called to mind a song, chosen at random ( _there was a princess with a gift / that brought her only pain; / Lelinne could change her body’s shape / then change it back again…_ ), and thought through what to say now.

“I… will be back,” said Ziari. He had gold in this room he would insist on taking.

“I’ll see you shortly, then,” said Varille.

(… _to use her gift brought burning pain / in all the flesh she changed…_ )

Ziari left the room with a destination in mind: the roof.

The guardsman a little lower on the spiral staircase turned to glance at him. The nearest candle on the stairs was in a holder on the wall across from Varille’s door, so Ziari could just make out the guardsman’s face.

“Good evening, Floquart,” Ziari said, his voice steady by sheer force of will. He didn’t stop for any further conversation, ignored Floquart’s return greeting, just kept going and fighting back a scream. ( _…her beauty now beyond compare, / her only change complete, / that loneliness she knew before, / she hoped she might defeat…_ )

He went and sat out on the roof in the sprinkling rain and rolled up his right sleeve. He bit down hard. There was no need to break the skin; the pain was still sharp and clear enough to drive everything else out of his head. Clenching his jaw a little tighter, he focused on the pain and the firm compression of flesh in his mouth and the softer sensation of his lips against his arm.

He panted like he’d just sprinted from one end of Solanne to the other, weak with relief. The physical world came sharply into focus: the stone beneath him, a tiny droplet of rain alighting on his nose, his hair stirring in the chill wind. He would survive this. His jaw unclenched, his teeth rested in the indentations they’d made for themselves, and slowly his breathing evened out. Now, what did he have evidence enough to be sure of, and what had been panicked false conclusions?

Varille’s rejection—it felt like something eating him from the inside; it felt like the hot breath of a predator on his neck—was _almost_ certain; the state of evidence was just short of an actual statement from Varille that he hated Ziari. Anyone who knew Ziari was the lynx would hate him—or worse, would pity him and try to sculpt him into a decent person by destroying any part of him that wasn’t (which was all of him)—but then, had Ziari actually revealed that? He had certainly tried not to. Could he spin it as an honest mistake and an attempt to serve Varille’s interests? It _was_ , in part. He hadn’t realized it would displease Varille—had barely been in any fit state to realize anything—and had done what he could to complete the mission.

It might be worth trying, to say he’d been traveling too much, that it had taken its toll and he needed to stay put for a while, after which he would be fine and it wouldn’t happen again. Varille might be willing to give him a second chance. Taking an objective view, the time Ziari took to ruin relationships was getting, very slowly, a little longer; he’d gone about two years with this, and if Varille did give him another chance, maybe he could go more than another two. Maybe not three, but… anything would be worth it for another two years here with Varille.

-~-

Ziari wasn’t gone long—just long enough for Varille to finish reading the most recent letter from his ambassador in East Liat—but it was still long enough to effect a noticeable change in him. He held himself straighter; his mien was more open and calmer. He held himself like a knight before a tournament.

“I think it would be a good idea to talk about the mistakes I made,” said Ziari, shutting the door. “I know you may not decide to give me another chance, and I don’t think I could complain if you didn’t—and you don’t owe me for my last mission, either; why should you pay me to _not_ do what you want?—but…” Ziari trailed off with a sigh, but didn’t seem too overwrought for the conversation—a marked improvement from before.

“That’s very gallant of you,” said Varille, “but it is _my_ fault for not making it clear that I won’t pay you for extrajudicial executions of people who have never been charged with any crime. It gets in the way of making Serinne’s national government as straightforward, predictable and transparent as possible to those who answer directly to me. I like to be able to explain my actions to my palatines; at least, I like to be able to admit to them. I didn’t adequately explain that before. I’m sorry I left you confused about what to do. You’re right that I can’t pay you for what you did. I’m so sorry you spent months on a project that didn’t pay off. Oh, by the way, because you’re my friend and might be in some trouble, I would like to give you a star, as a gift.”

Ziari burst out laughing.

“Additionally, regarding the murders you just confessed to, you were, so far as I can tell, acting under the false belief that your actions were sanctioned by the King of Serinne. It would have been too difficult to return to Solanne to ask me. I am at fault—through negligence rather than malice—and if you have any idea where to find the families of the men I accidentally contributed, by negligence, to the deaths of, would you please help deliver my payment to them?”

Ziari tilted his head, then shrugged. “Maybe. Next time I’m in Perrau, I’ll see what I can do. So… does this mean I’m _not_ fired?”

“Luckily,” said Varille, “it’s almost winter and we don’t need to decide that until spring. I have other worries right now.” Like the Nilkots, who had not consolidated their hold on the country of Ibentra, but had managed to drive its king into exile in the neighboring East Liat and shatter its administrative structure. “Regardless, you’ll always be welcome as my guest.”

Ziari strode briskly across the room, took hold of Varille by the hair, and kissed him.

-~-

Late autumn prevented a lot of travel and gave Ziari an excuse to stay comfortable and keep Varille close. He had missed the Days of the Dead at the beginning of Paraire, the eleventh month, by being away from Solanne, but it really didn’t matter; he had no family to celebrate with, nor ancestors to honor. He might’ve spent part of the time with Morelet, who didn’t have any family either, but Morelet had to work those days.

Varille, of _course_ , had family and ancestors both, honorable and deeply beloved.

On one of the eights—or the minor fasts; they called them different things in different parts of Serinne, and Ziari had been all over—on the eighth of Taveraire, Varille was busy all day with prayer and council and court, it wasn’t raining, and the cooks and waitstaff had more time on their hands than usual. So Ziari and Morelet went to sit atop a tower together. (Not Varille’s; few people were allowed up there. One of the other towers.)

The wind was chill, not freezing. Ziari wore thick knee-high wool socks and a cloak, which were enough for him; Morelet needed a coif for his freshly-shaven head and had slipped a handkerchief under his metal collar to keep it from chilling his neck. The two settled side-by-side, their backs against a merlon, Morelet with his knitting and Ziari savoring idleness, both of them watching the immense gray clouds coming in from the sea.

“So where were you this time?” Morelet asked.

“Perrau for a while,” said Ziari. “Not the city.”

“Laurens?” Morelet asked, turning to Ziari with a sudden expectant tension.

“For a while,” said Ziari. “Why?”

“While you were there, did you see a couple—Berthan and Roaisa—about in their fifties now? She’s short, he can’t see the color red…” Watching Ziari’s face, he trailed off.

“No,” said Ziari. “Are they friends of yours?”

“No, I often make up people I’ve never met and ask after them,” said Morelet. “And how is Lelinne the Shapeshifter doing? Still locked in that tower?”

“Dead of thirst because she wouldn’t just turn into a bird, the coward,” said Ziari.

Morelet snorted. “Who _expects_ courage from women?”

“Varille,” Ziari answered without hesitation. “And anyone who believes the stories about Queen Solanne.”

“So His Grace and the same people who believe in witches and werewolves,” said Morelet. “Don’t you tell him I said this, but I question the judgment someone who expects faith from vagrants and honor from murderers.”

Ziari laughed, then wondered who the murderer was. The vagrant was Ziari, he was almost sure. Given that Morelet was a slave for _some_ reason, Ziari wondered if that was confirmation of what it was he’d done.

“If you’re talking about me, I’d _never_ betray him,” said Ziari, mostly to lure Morelet into saying something similar and confirming that he was also talking about himself.

“You don’t have to say that,” said Morelet. “If you were capable of loyalty, you’d swear yourself to someone.” He shrugged. “If either of us wanted upstanding friends, we’d stay away from each other.”

It was true enough: Ziari _wasn’t_ capable of loyalty or virtue, of love or belonging or being anything other that complete in himself and closed off against ties to other people. He shouldn’t react.

(It felt like being eviscerated.)

He shouldn’t react but all was lost and Morelet hated him, Morelet held him in contempt—a _slave_ held him in contempt—and all was lost and no one would ever love him. He reminded himself that Morelet might be wrong, a terrible judge of people, a horrible person, simply unworthy of Ziari.

He stayed silent and tried to calm down. ( _Now, sit and listen, gentlemen, / until my song is sung…._ )

“What?” said Morelet, interrupting his train of thought.

( _…I’ll tell you of a bold outlaw; / they call him Lyn the young…_ )

“I don’t care—I’m the last person in any position to judge someone else. I’m not…” Morelet frowned, pulled his mouth to one side, glowered at his knitting, and finally settled on what to say. “Look, forget it if it doesn’t matter to you, but all I mean is I’m not trying to be friends with some secret virtuous soul I think you’re hiding. I had someone do that to me once—get attached to someone that’s not real. But if you don’t care, forget I said anything.”

Ziari could recognize that as a promise of everything he’d ever wanted and given up hope for. Unlike Varille’s apology the day he returned, he did understand this. He just didn’t believe it. Not because Morelet was a liar; people just tended to wildly underestimate how horrible Ziari was.

“And what happens if I turn on you, huh? I could make you care. I might.”

“Well, if you hurt _me_ , then maybe I’ll care,” said Morelet.

Ziari nodded and took comfort from that, even knowing he would, someday, hurt _everyone_. He was accepted as a beast incapable of virtue, simply on the grounds that he didn’t seem dangerous and the people of Solanne thought they could protect themselves. That understanding was like an icicle made of mead: sweet and smooth to swallow, heady, but cold down his throat and in his stomach, sinking its sick roots into his whole body.

“Was it Varille?” Ziari asked. “That did that to you, I mean.”

Morelet smiled. “No. His Grace might hope for more than anyone else I’ve ever met, but I’ve never known him to think he had what he wanted just because he wanted it.” He shook his head, then frowned like he was considering something. “He’s famed for his wisdom in all of Serinne; I’d think he could figure out someone convicted of fratricide isn’t nice, no matter how sure he is that people can change.” Morelet’s voice was too casual, skimmed too quickly over his confession for it not to be a test of Ziari’s reaction. It _was_ worse than Ziari had expected, but Morelet was right: neither of them was looking for upstanding friends.

“You killed your brother?” Ziari exclaimed. “What, really? I’m disappointed in you. I thought you’d done something _interesting_ like rape your mother to death. I can’t believe you. All this time I’ve been waiting to find out what you did and that’s it? How could you do something so _underwhelming_?”

“Well, I thought about doing something more interesting, of course,” said Morelet, “but then I said to myself: ‘you know what would be even better than raping your mother? Annoying Ziari. You don’t know him yet, but you will and when you do you’ll want your crimes to be as disappointing as possible.’ Then I chose a crime that would make my family disown me so the church wouldn’t even try to keep me near them, just so I could be in Solanne when you arrived—I knew you would come here years before you knew it—and all my life so far has been building up to this very conversation, where I could fulfill my greatest and dearest ambition: disappointing you. Now I can die happy!”

“Oh, no!” Ziari exclaimed. “You can’t die because of me—I’ll have to flee Solanne, or they’ll have me for murder!”

“Oh, all right,” Morelet said with a great show of pouting and petulance. “I’ll live. Just because you insist on it.”

Ziari laughed, then Morelet laughed too, and harder, and that made Ziari grin so hard his cheeks ached. The moment’s joy was like the warmth from drinking; might be it was just as treacherous and misleading, but it sang to him of joy and belonging and the fulfillment of all his dreams, so that, no matter what he knew, it was impossible not to believe he was safe in this perfect moment.

-~-

The rest of the fast day was also perfect; Ziari slept in Varille’s bed while everyone else busy praying—so he’d be able to stay up at night with Varille—then woke for dinner, which was, as usual, better and more than most people would have on any day, feast or fast. Oysters in sweet ginger almond gravy, fried fish in a crispy skin of flour, fruit pies, among other things. Varille spent the meal trying to solve a political problem—something that necessitated inviting a couple of guild leaders and Losa to the high table to talk about it—but then, they _never_ got to eat together, because Ziari never got to sit at the high table. Instead he spent the meal talking to Lady Treasurer Jehanne of Vouthon and her husband, who had fascinating things to say about the future of knight tenure in a world where wars were being fought farther than forty days from home and infantry was starting to decide the fates of battles and, someday, might even win entire wars.

When sunset came and Varille retired to his room, where Ziari waited for him, he shut the door and sighed.

“You all right?” Ziari asked, shifting to rest his cheek on his hand and his elbow against the bed, not feeling like sitting up.

“ _I_ am,” said Varille. “I think I made a mistake in approaching just two guilds about accepting Losa. These two seemed the most likely to be amenable, but… well, it might not matter, anyway; they might be right that Losa can’t perform the duties guilds ask of their members. And then there’s the medical research the crown and Altri’s church are jointly funding—this isn’t a secret; you can tell anyone, though I hope you’ll wait and let us find some way to make this sound reassuring… but we’ve found that we don’t know how to treat cholera. Have you heard how the research is being conducted?”

“No,” said Ziari. He’d heard _that_ it was happening, but not the details.

“We’re finding large numbers of patients with certain diseases and randomly dividing each disease group into five groups of fifty patients: we pay for a Serinnaise doctor to treat fifty, a foreign doctor from the east to treat fifty, and a wisewoman to treat fifty. Sacrifices to Mersa and Altri are made on behalf of another fifty. The last fifty are given nothing—but for their help, their families receive payment. Or they do, if they survive. The results for cholera are in. The differences between the groups are minimal. They’re so small they might even be illusion—a fair coin, flipped twice in a row, could come up heads both times by chance; this situation is analogous.” Varille shook his head. “The goal was to determine how cost-effective different treatments are, but so far nothing is effective at all. I hope the other diseases are more treatable.”

He still hadn’t gone to sit at his desk or on the bed with Ziari. In fact, now he turned back to the closed door and rested his forehead against it.

“So nothing you do works,” said Ziari. “And you don’t know of anything to try that might work.” And what he worried about and tried desperately to do was save lives and get people to like and trust each other. Ziari loved him so much it hurt.

“I did just say that. You don’t happen to know anything about medicine, do you?”

“I’ve read Claude of Pergame,” said Ziari. “I could’ve told you you don’t treat cholera patients to keep them from dying—just to keep them from dying in a puddle of their own diarrhea, retching up nothing because they’ve been too weak to get themselves food. Four out of five die. Sometimes someone wonders what if you just did _this_ , what if you just did _that_ —it doesn’t make any difference. The gods kill whoever they want and they save whoever they want and you can’t change their minds. Don’t even worry about it.”

He lay back down and watched the ceiling. He couldn’t let Varille keep feeling helpless, not when he was the noblest man in all the world. Anything at all to solve either of Varille’s problems…

“That doesn’t sound like something Claude of Pergame would have written,” said Varille.

“Well, I have experience. Oh! But you know what? Two different members of the Farriers’ Guild have deaf children. One’s six, the other’s nine. They have these gestures—they’ve grown up together; they use the same ones—and some of the guild members have been learning them and so have some journeymen. They can say almost anything with their hands, but only to people who know the system. Those children can only talk to a few people. On the other hand, think of the people who are getting old. Think of the people who want to talk in church but don’t want to admit how bored they are. Think of all the people who’d be better off if they could use these gestures that are so precise they’re practically like a language. Imagine if you could come up with some reason why it’s in the public interest—in _your_ interest—for everyone in Solanne to be able to do that. Maybe it’s… um… morally edifying? Good for trade? Anyway, find a reason why you wish people could do it. Offer to pay someone to teach the system. Offer to pay people to learn the system. They won’t care about your reasons, but they’ll care about your coin, they’ll care about their deaf grandparents, they’ll care about talking without being overheard. Suppose you had a reason. Suppose you were just not sure whether to hire one of these farriers to teach people, and since you have so many problems, you just can’t spare any time or money on this one until you solve one of your others. Like integrating the Losa.”

“That might work,” said Varille, sounding heartened.

It was Ziari who had cheered him up. It was Ziari who had made him happy. Ziari had just helped someone, and better yet, it was someone he liked. He let out a quiet sigh at all the impossible gifts he’d been given today.

-~-

For the sake of not having a lot of income while never being seen working, Ziari worked at something other than spying sometimes. Unfortunately, there were some problems between him and the Chandlers’ Guild, besides which, he wouldn’t work under a master anymore, so that left only one choice for honest, well-paying, respectable work that could be had part-time in a city on his own schedule and not on anyone else’s.

On the day after the fast, it was sunny enough (and, of course, the library windows were broad enough and well-positioned enough) that he could copy whatever was most in need of it today—which was, according to the librarian, the old copy of The Miracles of Genoveva, Saint of Liven. One of a handful of books—along with a translation of Claude of Pergame’s Principles of Medicine—written in the Serinnaise vernacular, unlike the majority of books, which were in Litan.

By the thickness, it looked like the work of a month full-time—twice that for Ziari, who didn’t feel like hunching over from dawn to dusk with his hand cramping and his eyes burning every day.

Ziari muttered to himself while he read—“…most famous for taming and healing the wild madman of Fire Peak…”—because most of Solanne didn’t need to know he could read silently, and wouldn’t have believed that he could copy out the shapes of the letters without wanting to read them.

“…and returned to the village, where he stayed until he died,” Ziari read and flinched. He glanced at the librarian, who didn’t seem to be watching. He reminded himself that it was vanishingly unlikely that anyone would ever connect him to Tinalu, and that, unlike the wild madman of Fire Peak, he couldn’t be healed. He kept going, made it another paragraph—what if he was, though? And smiled and agreed that ten years as Ziari were a lie, that he belonged in Verula, that he deserved to have his eyes put out and his hands cut off? What if someone could take all the festering disease he thought of as himself and get rid of it, leaving only a healthy, obedient, hardworking shell behind, one that would thank them for killing him?

Well, that was less likely the more useful he was, he reminded himself. So just another sentence. Just another sentence after that one. Now a third and then a fourth. No one had any reason to take him back there. Even those who had a reason didn’t know enough to do it. He copied another sentence, his whispered voice dead and despairing, his hands carefully steady and slow so no reader would notice his fear. There was no reason to worry, anyway—if he had to run again, he would run; otherwise, he didn’t gain anything by dwelling on something so unlikely.

He kept writing (“…miraculous fertility of the land was certainly…”) and worrying. The air felt thin. His heart had turned to ice. He could barely breathe through his tight throat. It got harder and harder to keep his hands steady.

(“…for which she was declared a saint by the Church of Liven, though she was clearly more devoted to Taverie…”)

It would be so nice if he could stop this. Panicking at remote possibilities grated on him so much sometimes he wanted to scream at himself. ( _Oh, just stop. Stop crying about everything, Tinalu, or I’ll give you something to cry about!_ ) They weren’t going to come drag him back. It was stupid to think otherwise. He just needed to forget the things his ill-advised visit had brought to mind. ( _Sobal’s scrotum! Stop pretending to be stupid!_ )

He ran out of ink and stared at his quill for a while; how to refill it momentarily slipped his mind, distracted as he was by a past that wasn’t even his. These pointless, overdramatic, unbearable emotions were so very frustrating that Ziari had to exert a certain amount of self-control to keep from breaking his quill in half. His fingers itched to do it. He longed to do it, and then to throw the ink bottle across the room, like a starving man longed to eat a roast chicken that was right in front of him, right there for the taking…

This really couldn’t go on indefinitely. Well, no, it could, but Ziari wasn’t interested in allowing it to.

He’d heard that those dedicated to Lani knew secrets that allowed them to stand firm through terror, to bear any pain without truly suffering, to revel in chaos that would drive lesser men to madness. It was said—and it might even be true—that they had studied sanity, had stepped away to see it from a distance and refined it to an art that could be taught and learned even by the mad. Sanity alone, not virtue; Lani was a god of destruction. He wasn’t blameworthy, in the same way that an infant or an animal couldn’t be blamed, no matter what it did; he might be kind and he might be cruel, but not from any desire to do good or evil.

He was still a god, though, and Ziari hated gods—they were fond of taking and taking and taking until he had nothing left to give, nor anything left for his own survival—so it would be much better to just calm down, forget about Verula, and never again do anything as stupid as going back there.

He dipped his quill and wrote another sentence, then another, then another. How many years until he could forget Verula again?

Another sentence and another. And on and on, reading about someone who worshiped Taverie ( _Taverie asks us for order and law_ ) and Liven, who healed people of the sort of independence Ziari had fought so hard for. And another sentence and he dipped his quill again and another and another and another…

Well, no, she didn’t really heal _people_ —first of all, it was only one, but also, he wasn’t a _person_ when she healed him: how could he be, in the wild, doing no work, saying no prayers, having no family?

Under Varille’s kind and merciful influence, Solanne was extremely tolerant toward masterless vagrants, so much so that they were only watched and spied on and quoted higher prices at most shops and the first suspects for any crime that happened while they were present. Solanne was noted and far-famed for such a generous and permissive attitude, particularly in comparison with other cities, where—though Varille had made this officially illegal—they were generally killed on sight, or else pressed into slavery.

He shook his head and wrote another sentence. Started to write yet another, then paused, halfway through, with a sensation like hot breath on the back of his neck. He’d heard no footsteps; he turned and no one was there. But what if Solanne wasn’t warming to him as much as he thought? What if the people spying on him hadn’t gotten less interested or more complacent but better at pretending they weren’t spies? What if they were actually collecting as much information about him as possible so that, rather than simply killing him, they could kidnap him and torture him as effectively as possible, maybe finding someone with a gift for healing other people’s injuries and illnesses and even old age, so he could never, ever escape? He stared at the page, willing himself to remember how to read, but it wasn’t working.

The door opened. Ziari leapt to his feet, shouting in surprise and knocking over the stool he’d been sitting on, drew his knife—it was only for eating dinner with, but he would do the best he could—and then, and only then, recognized Bishop Alir, Altri’s representative on the king’s council. A fat man even more unlikely to personally subdue anyone than he was to want to hurt anyone in the first place.

But he’d seen, and the librarian had seen, and now all was lost and everyone in Solanne knew how horrible Ziari was, and now Ziari would need to leave. Again.

All was lost.

“Am I interrupting something?” asked Alir, taking a couple of steps away from the door. That made it more likely that Ziari could get out. The other way out would be through a window; the library, high up in a tower where it was hard for arrows to reach, had windows that looked out on the castle’s own courtyard, where it would be a bit difficult for archers to stand to shoot. Given that and that the room was for reading—which needed light—the windows were just broad enough that Ziari could climb out. Maybe he should. Maybe it would be good to crash on the ground and break, bones shattering and flesh smashing like a peach, to lie dead in the yard with his blood feeding the dirt. Excellent idea, yes. All was lost; why shouldn’t he jump?

“Well?” asked Alir. He seemed puzzled. Oh, he was asking Ziari a question.

“Sorry,” said Ziari, sheathing his knife. “You startled me.”

Alir nodded as though he were coming to an interesting conclusion that required further thought. “I hadn’t realized,” he said, and trailed off as he went to one of the bookshelves around the room.

He found a book, took it from the shelf, and went to the round table in the center of the room, where Ziari was already sitting. Or had been sitting, and was now standing. It was big enough for both of them; Alir sat across from Ziari, who finally remembered that he’d knocked over one of the stools and set it back up. He stood a while longer, not sure what to do. All was lost.

“No need to stand on my account,” said Alir. Ziari sat, for lack of any better ideas. “You know something? If you want my advice, talk to a veteran about that jumpiness. They tend to have some experience with that.”

Then Alir read through part of the book’s index, and flipped back to a page that discussed whatever it was he was looking for. (Ziari was a beginner at Litan and didn’t understand much of it.)

And no battle happened and Alir didn’t say anything else to him, but Ziari still felt as though the ground were tilting under his feet.

-~-

Ziari managed to copy four pages that day, then gave up and looked for someone to spend some time with. Morelet worked nearly every day—as vacation he had only the eights, plus Altri’s Day when all slaves were free, which would have been fourteen days off if he didn’t choose to work Altri’s Day for double what most free servants made in that much time any other day of the year—and Ziari couldn’t possibly afford to bribe the head cook to let him off _every_ time either of them got lonely. Jehanne the treasurer was busy with her husband and their daughter. Varille spent most of every day on some combination of holding court, talking to people, having council meetings, doing sword drills, and somehow finding time for the crown princess; he was very, very rarely free while the sun was up.

He knew deep in his bones that everyone in Solanne wanted nothing more than to torture him to death. Of course, he’d seen Alir forgive him, seen the librarian shrug and go back to work, and when he thought about it, it seemed plausible that his intuition was wrong and a quick conversation with Varille would reassure him. Not certain, but plausible.

Terror still sat heavy in his belly and loneliness danced sick and smooth around the edges of the empty place where his heart should be, but if there was no one to comfort him, then there was no one to comfort him and no point in looking. He went to Varille’s room and tried to savor the soft bed, tried to relax enough to sleep.

-~-

It didn’t bother Ziari that Varille had turned into a fish, though the inexplicable sense of foreboding that clung to the very water of the Solanne River did. Ziari dangled his feet in the hungry river, which chilled him all the way up to his scalp and down to the ends of his hair, and Varille swam up to rub against his legs like a cat.

“The lucky should give to the poor,” said fish-Varille, which obviously meant that he was going to move from the Solanne river, full of fish, to the Lake of Perrau, clear and almost empty. That was the completely logical and only possible application of that principle to this situation.

“You’re taking me away from Solanne?” asked Ziari.

“Of course not,” said Varille. “The ramparts need you. But then, so do I.” He took one of Ziari’s charms in his mouth and swam away. The charm wouldn’t come off; the bracelet wouldn’t break. Instead it slipped off Ziari’s wrist.

He sank to his knees crying, wailing, begging Varille not to do this to him. Varille didn’t come back, so he wailed ever more terribly, but no one cared about his pain. No one would have mercy on him.

Something told him to look behind him, at the city, but he knew deep in his bones that he mustn’t, that once he knew what it looked like, something terrible would happen.

Compelled somehow, he found himself turning around—he was standing up now—and he saw no city at all, just fields of young green rye, and blood on the soil at his feet.

The dream left him gasping, disoriented, sweating and shivering at the same time. He touched his bracelet and breathed a little easier. And there was the stone of Varille’s castle and the soft feather bed on its wooden frame. There he was.

If nightmares like this were going to be a problem, he definitely needed to get done with sleeping in private so Varille didn’t witness one during the night.

-~-

“I’m sure I just _had_ a nightmare,” said Ziari, unamused and unimpressed by the endless fields of rye stretching to the horizon and past it, the world that consisted of nothing but rye. He took off and flew away, because shapeshifting in dreams was as fast and painless as he wanted it to be.

He landed on a tree. It was in the courtyard of the royal palace of Liat, whose gardens were rumored to be nearly as beautiful as Sarn Abbey’s. Ziari decided to go check and compare them, so he took off and crashed against the ceiling and fell to the floor of a cell in the dungeon. At least there was no rye in the dungeon.

A guard came and served him a bowl of everything-in-it, rye and vegetables and broad beans cooked and mixed together until they became nondescript mush, “because it’s what you’re fit for,” said the guard, speaking Liaten. It was true; he didn’t deserve to eat at a king’s table. But it wasn’t true, because Ziari actually deserved to be fed with the pigs, not with any people at all. Since the guard was wrong, he probably couldn’t keep Ziari captive. Ziari flew out the window.

There was no castle and there was no guard and the world was nothing but an endless sea of growing grain. He flew, looking for another castle or something, somewhere to escape to, someone who could protect him from the rye, but there was nowhere and no one and nothing but rye and more rye.

Not even wheat.

He would get tired and have to land eventually, but he couldn’t risk it now because there was rye and he couldn’t just land there; it would devour him, it would destroy him, it would corrode him from the inside out—or maybe the outside in—and yet there was nothing else in all the world, no safe place to land, nowhere, nowhere, and all that came into view was more rye. He even tried looking for the castle he’d left, but no matter which direction he turned in, he couldn’t even see it.

If he could just wake up, he could find a bed, which wouldn’t be made of rye. He could escape into waking life if only he knew how to get there. He knew, just knew, that the correct way to wake up was to find something other than the endless rye, anything at all, so he kept looking.

His wings were getting tired. He couldn’t keep flying. He fell smoothly, gently into the field. The grain blotted out the sky, hiding it completely from view. He was trapped here, eternally trapped, there was blood in the dirt and all was lost.

Fine, then; he was trapped and all was lost. He could still throw his defiance in the dream-world’s teeth.

“This is the _stupidest_ nightmare!” he shouted at it, sitting bolt upright in the rye and then wondering why he was looking right at Varille. And why Varille was looking at him in such confusion.

“Oh, hello,” said Ziari, laughing nervously.

“Are you all right?” asked Varille.

“Oh. Yes, of course. I… it was just a dream. I dreamed the entire world had turned into a field of rye and I couldn’t find Solanne anywhere.” Ziari made himself grin. “Did I call it a stupid nightmare out loud? It was. Stupid, I mean. Don’t worry about it.”

Varille laughed. “Dreams sound so confusing. Well, I only came up to be sure you didn’t sleep through dinner.”

“Oh! Thanks.”

“Will you walk down with me, at least?” Varille asked. “And tell me more about your dream?”

“Sure, of course,” said Ziari, considering how best to spin his nightmares into silly stories for someone whose gift had robbed him of the chance to experience dreams firsthand. It shouldn’t be hard.

-~-

“…So then all you need to do is figure out how likely the doctor’s results would be to happen by chance,” said Iselle, Varille’s only daughter, at the end of a long explanation of her ideas about chance and how it applied to the medical research being done. The two of them were walking together, Iselle with her spindle trailing from her hand, suspended by the very yarn it was in the process of creating. “Is that right?”

“It seems right to me,” said Varille. “I can’t see anything wrong with it.”

“Is it what you came up with?”

“Me? I had no answer and I wouldn’t be surprised if your ideas are entirely new.”

Iselle was silent a moment, then: “So that wasn’t a test?”

Varille laughed. “No, it wasn’t.”

Iselle was silent another while. The clouds overhead shifted and the afternoon sun shone through a thin patch, like sheer gauze against the sky; with sun came long shadows over all the castle’s herb garden where they walked.

“So then… I just solved a problem you had,” said Iselle.

“Really, it’s the Church of Altri’s problem,” said Varille. “In fact, write down what you told me—all those metaphors about finding the box Truth is hidden in, as well as the arithmetic—and provide Bishop Alir with a copy. A _copy_ , mind, and see to it that you provide the castle library with another. This idea of yours is important—to be able to say, not just that something unlikely could have happened by chance, but _exactly_ how often it should happen—and this incorporation of uncertainty into the measurement of the degree of effect—this is important.”

“I will. So I’m a part of things now, aren’t I? Will you tell me your other problems, so I can practice on them, too?”

Varille couldn’t tell her about Ziari, and that realization drove home to him that he had created a situation that could be used to blackmail him. Those people had not been given trials, and they hadn’t been sentenced publicly with the transparency necessary for a government that wanted its people’s trust, and it was Varille’s fault. It wasn’t, in the scheme of things, a very big problem—three deaths, when he frequently made decisions that could cost or save hundreds of lives—but it was the sort of problem that could look very bad, as opposed to one that would take hours to explain and would therefore never become widely known.

“The followers of Lani are as organized as either of the churches and have a fair amount of political influence in Sarn and Hound Isle, and they’re opposed to logging in the Northwood. The Church of Liven is on the fence about the issue. Palatine Ven, the Church of Altri and just about every merchant in Serinne desperately want at least enough land cleared for a royal highway along the Hallowed Coast, from Solanne to Lisse City. And meanwhile, the whole forest is infested with bandits, who make logging and road-building both more important and more difficult. A mutually agreeable compromise isn’t theoretically impossible—the Lanians are opposed to deforestation and the taming of wild land, while their opponents are in favor of safe travel without bandits. If the forest were uninhabited…”

“Then the bandits wouldn’t be happy,” said Iselle. “Are you going to find some way to make _them_ happy, too?”

If he could get information on why they had turned to banditry, he might. “What do you think?” he asked, rather than answer.

“I think even if you could, you might want to punish them anyway, as a warning. Not so harshly that you leave yourself no room to do worse, but harshly enough to make others think twice about banditry. Your response hasn’t been… impressive… so far, so otherwise, you might give them the wrong idea.”

“Hm,” said Varille, “and why do you think that is?”

“Well… because they’re still there, and it’s been years.”

“Fair enough—but not what I meant by my question. How did this happen?”

“Oh. Hmmm…”

They turned a corner and came to a part of the garden path where one of the stepstones was missing and the one right ahead of it half-buried in the wet, wet mud. Both of them stopped for a moment. Iselle stuck her spindle in her belt, lifted her skirts up to her knees, set off at a run, and leaped the gap; she landed in a crouch and didn’t quite manage to keep the hems of her skirts off the damp ground. She straightened, turned and grinned back at Varille.

He applauded; she curtsied. It was a relief that she would bother to land well, rather than relying on her healing gift, but he’d said similar things so often that she could finish his sentences for him when he got onto that topic.

“So, I think… at first, you wanted to let Palatine Ven deal with it. Then you had other priorities. Hmm.” Iselle frowned.

Varille took a careful step across the mud—Iselle might have just managed that, if she’d tried, though maybe not; she only came up to Varille’s shoulder.

“But you would have dealt with it if it were easy… but they have the forest and more experience in it than anyone else by now, and they don’t need to win a fight—if they can avoid ever fighting your men, they win. _And_ they win if they win a fight with your men. We _only_ win if we win, so they have a certain advantage. Is that right?”

“That’s right,” said Varille, falling into step with her again. It was almost easy to match her pace; she moved briskly enough that he didn’t need to intentionally shorten his stride for her.

“So… you think people know that. If I can puzzle it out, why can’t someone else? So even if you do manage to kill all of these, or arrest them and give them to the Church… you still can’t leave the woods untouched. You’ll need to go against the Lanians no matter what,” said Iselle. “That or disappoint everyone else.”

“It does seem like that,” Varille agreed. “If I knew more…” If he sent Ziari—with clearer instructions this time—to find information, and _only_ that… but could he? He hadn’t come back from his last trip… intact. Not if Bishop Alir was right. (“I swear he didn’t know who I was or where he was when he threatened me,” Alir had said.)

“About what? The forest? The bandits?”

“Indeed. Even if for no other reason than that knowing the enemy will make the battle easier.” Or to find some other solution. If he could, he’d like to find some way to use these people who had eluded capture and survived in the forest without his help, who had set themselves against society and lived to tell the tale. What practical skills had allowed them to do that? And what other use could they be put to? And what incentive could he wield that would sway them?

“I wonder…” Iselle trailed off.

A raindrop landed on Varille’s hand; he looked up at the clouds and a moment later felt one strike his forehead.

“Time to get back inside, I suppose,” said Iselle, and the two of them hurried back to the keep.

-~-

Ziari waited on Varille’s bed, with the window shuttered and no light burning. Sunset came earlier and earlier this time of year, but there was no such thing as early enough, not when Ziari knew—just _knew_ , somehow, with rock-solid unshakable certainty—that if Varille wasn’t with him right then, he must be plotting betrayal. After all, why shouldn’t he betray Ziari? Theoretically, legally, Ziari wasn’t even a person with rights—he had no nation and no master or lord to vouch for him. Only some combination of Ziari’s strength and cleverness and Varille’s virtue and honesty kept the dealings between them fair; Varille could do anything to him, _anyone_ could do anything to him, and Ziari would have just about no recourse.

Yes, he had chosen this—it was that or submit to some fallible human’s (or mostly-human’s) authority and give up the right to protect himself, knowing full well that no one else ever would, oath or no—and he had no regrets, no matter that it meant he would never own land, never join a guild, never be truly welcome in a community.

Grief wasn’t the same thing as regret—he was doing the only thing he could—and what Ziari had none of was regret. This was the best choice by such a wide margin it might as well be the only choice, and lying alone in the dark on a cold evening, knowing he had given up _everything_ essential to being a person, an adult, a part of society, knowing he had only the cold comfort of his silver bracelet to tell him who he was when other people had wives and lords and friends and parents and children and duties and titles and rights…

The door opened and Ziari drew a sharp breath, but didn’t panic; this was Varille’s room. It was guarded.

“You’re in here in the dark?” Varille asked. He left the door open as he went to go light a candle.

“Seemed cheaper than burning your candles.”

“Oh. Well, thank you, then. You may light them if you need to.”

But Ziari didn’t need to, so there was no reason he should cause any expense to Varille, who would, after all, eventually run out of patience. Might as well burn through Varille’s goodwill a little more slowly by not being so much of a burden. How many weeks of welcome was he giving up every time he lit a candle? There was no way to be sure, and no way to be sure how long he had to begin with.

And he really wasn’t looking forward to losing Varille. Varille was… well, Ziari wasn’t looking forward to losing him.

The way Varille had his candle and mirror set up, the light was mostly focused on his desk, but it did make some difference to the rest of the room. Backlit, Varille, at the end of a day and with his hair no longer neat, was haloed by the candlelight like a saint illustrated in a book of hours.

“So,” said Varille, “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me about what happened in the library.”

“I did too much traveling over the summer,” said Ziari. “I’ll be fine by spring.”

Varille was silent a moment before he answered. “Is there anything I can do to help you recover?”

“I don’t think so.” The entire line of questioning displeased Ziari; there were so many things he desperately wanted and could never even make it known that he wanted, let alone ask for, without being immediately reviled, that to offer him a chance to ask for anything was just pointless cruelty. Trying to start a more comfortable conversation, he asked: “Any progress on the Losa yet?”

“Not yet.”

As usual, his failure hit him with the force of a blow. “I’m sure it’ll all work out eventually,” said Ziari, trying to think of something else interesting. “Hey, want to hear a riddle?”

“Sure.” Varille did _sound_ interested, though it was just about impossible to make out his expression. At some point, Ziari really needed to get better at judging people’s emotions in the dark.

“What’s long, straight, hard, can be furred at one end—unless it’s shaved—and has a hole at the other, and—“

“A quill, of course,” said Varille. “Though, technically, they’re barbed, not furred.”

“Details!” Ziari scoffed.

“I have a riddle for you now,” said Varille. “What is a marvelous way to spend time, preferably an intimate activity with only two people, but possible to do with a crowd, which frequently results in groaning and yet is nonetheless pleasant, and which is lovely even when done with no skill to speak of but can be improved by great shows of creativity?”

“Um,” said Ziari, and it took him a while to figure it out. “…Riddling?”

“Exactly.”

“Does riddling make you horny? It seems to me like every time I do it I start thinking of sex,” said Ziari.

Varille _almost_ didn’t laugh, and failed at that, and ended up making such a funny noise that Ziari laughed, too.

“I can’t _imagine_ why,” said Varille. “What could quills and riddles _possibly_ have to do with _that_?”

“Well, I’m horny now,” Ziari whined, lying. “Hey, here’s a riddle for you: what do I want to do with you that’ll make us both less horny?”

Varille was silent a moment, apparently contemplating the riddle.

“I think I know! You’re looking forward to abstaining from meat and other foods that inflame the passions during the season of Liven’s Grief.”

Ziari fell backward onto the mattress, drowning in laughter. He couldn’t breathe. His cheeks hurt from grinning. It was too funny and he laughed so hard he thought he might be sick. 

Finally, wheezing a bit, he got himself calmed down, at which point, Varille asked “Was it really that funny?”

“Yes.” Maybe. Sometimes Ziari couldn’t tell if he was just being his usual overdramatic self, or if Varille was the funniest, kindest, best person alive. “So, can we?”

“The gods require it,” said Varille.

That soured Ziari’s mood completely. The gods should all be broken on a wheel, except for Dalire, Lady of Pain, who shouldn’t be given what she wanted and therefore shouldn’t be tortured. And how dare Varille imply that Ziari would be swayed by what the gods wanted? How dare he say that the gods could require anything at all of Ziari? Yes, it was a joke, fine. It wasn’t funny.

Which just made him want a distraction even more. He cared about too many things; there was always one thing happening that he really didn’t want, or not happening that he really did, or being destroyed that he wanted to preserve, or just generally going wrong.

“Oh, is _that_ the only reason you want me? Because the gods require it? And I thought you loved me.”

Varille laughed. “I do. I love you so much that it thrills me to think of you growing spiritually through abstinence.”

That was obviously a joke—Ziari wasn’t half as stupid as he would need to be to take it seriously—but then again, if Varille did think it followed from loving someone that he should be glad when that person did as the gods wanted, wouldn’t that make Varille yet another person who just wanted Ziari to die and let some better person take over his body and life? A twisted sort of “love” that was, and Ziari felt a wave of nausea sweep over him at the thought that Varille was just one more would-be murderer. Except that it was right and just to get rid of Ziari. Executioner, then, not murderer.

Except that Varille, very clearly, was more than willing to encourage Ziari to sin with him. Which was incompatible with any kind of love.

For just a moment, he felt as though he were sinking in a mire and needed to find something, anything at all, to grab onto to keep from drowning.

He focused on breathing deeply for a moment.

“What, that _wasn’t_ funny?” Varille asked, and how dare he presume to ask Ziari anything, the hateful poxy lich. He had no claim on Ziari’s goodwill if he gave none of his own in return. Ziari would very much love to stab him in the heart—not slipping the knife between his ribs, but shattering them on the way in, driving broken bone into his other organs along the way.

But that was a stupid way to feel, because this was only fair. Ziari wouldn’t inflict himself on someone he cared about; they were _both_ just callously using each other. This way it was even.

“I guess not,” Ziari said, keeping his voice casual. “Isn’t talking about Liven’s Grief a weird way to turn me down?”

“Oh! I hadn’t meant to turn you down.”

“Wait, what?”

“I like your suggestion,” said Varille, drawling in a way probably meant to convey that Ziari was stupid for not understanding sooner, “and I agree that we should have sex tonight.”

“Oh.” That was a comfort. He could be useful and earn himself a bed for the night, at least. Varille did want him. Not to love him, of course, but Varille certainly wanted things from him. “In that case, let’s get on with it.” Ziari did so badly need a distraction from this awful day.

Varille went to the door and locked it. Ziari, meanwhile, took off his belt as he stood. He went and draped that over the chair Varille kept by his desk; then he took off his tunic and did the same with that. He didn’t need to take off everything; it had taken some doing, but he had managed to get Varille not to insist on touching Ziari in any way that would make Ziari wish he were dead.

In hindsight, Varille’s willingness probably just meant he didn’t care about Ziari’s pleasure—because it _should_ be pleasure that he felt when someone touched him… _there_ … and it _shouldn’t_ make him curl up inside himself, away from the world. So, in hindsight, the fact that Varille was willing to not touch him should have warned him that Varille didn’t really love him, which he should really have known all along, because, after all, no one could love him.

But Varille did want something from him tonight, which, Ziari reminded himself firmly, was more than enough for tonight. Tomorrow he could worry about tomorrow.

He unfastened his bracelet and held it in his left hand, and, examining it, he divested himself of things more personal than clothing, stripping away every part of himself that wasn’t a perfect pet for Varille. Curiosity wasn’t necessary for Varille’s pet; he silently asked the eye on his bracelet to keep it safe for him until he needed it again. A deep-seated selfishness, the determination to figure out what he wanted and then get it for his own enjoyment by any means necessary—that wasn’t just unnecessary, it was downright counterproductive. He carefully uprooted it from his mind and let it wait in the cat’s fang. And on he went, setting aside every part of himself that wasn’t necessary for what he was about to do. Even some of his feelings toward Varille needed to be peeled away: Varille’s pet didn’t need to be inspired by his wisdom or try to imitate it.

Yes, Varille didn’t really love him, but without the cat’s fang, that didn’t matter. If he could make Varille happy, it didn’t matter what, if anything, he got in return. All that mattered was Varille: Varille’s happiness, and, to a much lesser extent, being close to Varille.

For just a moment, he seriously considered selling his bracelet, giving Varille the proceeds, staying like this and doing homage to Varille. But, of course, he couldn’t stay like this—he _would_ shift and change, whether he wanted to or not, without that bracelet—and besides, Varille would get sick of him and wouldn’t want any permanent relationship.

The creature set Ziari’s bracelet down carefully and turned to face Varille. Now that the candle was in front of Varille and behind the creature, it was easier to make out Varille’s expression, which was one of anticipation and excitement.

“Well, then,” said Varille, eyes glittering in the candlelight. He grinned with something that looked a lot like bloodlust. It looked, at least, like a pleasant feeling, so his pet smiled back, warm and relaxed.

Varille crossed the distance between them and took the creature’s chin in his left hand. The creature tensed, ready for a blow; the only reason Varille would use his left hand for this was to have his right free, and the only reason he would arrange his hand so awkwardly was to keep his own fingers out of the way.

Varille smirked, apparently at the reaction he caused, and instead trailed his fingertips lightly along the creature’s cheek.

Everything about this moment was so perfect it was hard to think straight. Perfect. Perfect. Just perfect. Varille had a hold of the creature, so that it was easy, trivially easy, just to stay where Varille wanted him to be. Just… to be, and have that be enough, and let Varille take care of making any choices that came up, since _he_ could actually do that without making everyone in a ten-mile radius furious. Varille’s smirk softened into a smile—he was happy, which was the most important thing. The creature relaxed with a sigh.

The blow came as a surprise. He giggled—Varille had outsmarted him. His cheek stung—and that was to make Varille happy. The world slipped into its proper order like a sword into a sheath; he hurt to please Varille, and that was exactly how it should be. It was satisfying. It was just.

But then, maybe he could do better; there were very, very few things he could do to make people happy, or even not make them hate him, but there was one thing he was good at, as long as he kept a careful eye on his lover’s reactions.

They were close now, though not pressed up against one another; he easily reached Varille’s hips with his left hand, trailed his fingers slowly closer to—but Varille took him gently by the wrist and moved his hand away.

“Not just yet,” said Varille, but he didn’t seem displeased.

All right, then; Varille had stopped him before he could do anything wrong. Good. Just as long as Varille kept him in line.

(He knew that later, Ziari would hate to have been like this… when he wasn’t busy wishing things could always be this simple, wishing he could always care about more than just himself.)

“I think,” said Varille, letting go of him and stepping back, “after I’m done with you you’ll need to heal yourself.” He smiled.

Shapeshifting could be used to make cut skin whole in the same way it could be used to make it scaly or slimy like a fish. It usually hurt worse than the injury itself, but it worked well.

The creature returned Varille’s smile, though Varille probably couldn’t make out his expression anyway.

“Well,” said Varille, and he went and sat on the edge of his bed. “Will you come to me?”

For some reason, Varille cared what his pet wanted. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but the creature didn’t need to understand, just serve—in this case, by wondering whether he did really want whatever Varille was planning. But of course he did; pleasing Varille was the best thing he could possibly do.

The creature went and sat at the floor at Varille’s feet. He didn’t kneel—people knelt to show respect for their king; the creature just loved Varille.

After a last glance at the locked door and window, he sat at Varille’s feet, neither facing Varille nor facing away from him, and rested his cheek on Varille’s knee.

“Give me your hand,” said Varille, in a voice deceptively calm and casual.

The creature complied. He offered his right hand, the one less precious—his heart beat faster, which wasn’t usual for a moment like this, when normally he would be sinking deep into the peaceful sense that he had someone to please and the ability to actually do so.

Varille took hold of his hand and gently pulled it toward—for an instant, it was Verula, Tinalu’s arms stretched out in front of him and every onlooker unanimous in condemnation—the creature wasn’t sure for a moment whether Varille and the castle and Serinne were real—somehow he’d ended up on his feet, his back against the wall, fists raised, in Varille’s room, next to Varille’s stack of books and papers, facing Varille, leagues away from the closest part of Liat and even more leagues away from Verula.

Varille had his hands up, head height, palms forward, and was slowly moving sideways as though he meant to put the bed between himself and the door, when there was the muffled thud and rattle of someone yanking on a locked door. Then a knock.

“What’s happened?” a man demanded—one of Indisi’s men come to take him away—no, actually, that was Perrin’s voice, and he was speaking Serinnaise; he was one of Varille’s most trusted guardsmen, which made sense because this was Varille’s castle, guarded by Varille’s men.

“We’re both safe!” Varille answered. “No one is hurt.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it! I heard a scream and if no one’s found a way in to hurt you, then you can open up right now, or else—”

Varille silenced him by the simple expedient of opening the door. Faint flickering candlelight trickled in around him. “We’re both fine, but thank you,” said Varille. “Now, I don’t think there should be two of us between him and the door right now.” At this, he gestured at the creature, and then, with only a brief pause, stepped to the side and out of the way of the exit.

The creature forced himself not to scream (again?) at the not-remotely-subtle hint that he was no longer welcome here. That was completely reasonable of Varille and the creature would never want to bother him, ever, would never even consider forcing Varille to have anything to do with such a wholly and thoroughly objectionable animal—Varille was the greatest man alive and it was about time he noticed that he deserved better—and it would be cruel beyond belief to complain or try to fight it. That included trying to fight by demonstrating how much it hurt, which was inherently evil because it would upset Varille, who was an empathetic and caring person. The only acceptable thing to do would be to leave immediately and never come back.

He took Ziari’s bracelet with him when he left the room. Ziari would be better able to survive now—at the very least, Ziari wouldn’t be indifferent between life and death without Varille.

Ziari had gone to the roof for comfort so many times already that the creature found himself going up, rather than down, the stairs.

Once out on the roof, he could tell immediately that this wasn’t going to be a good night to travel. He sighed and leaned over to keep Ziari’s bracelet shielded from the pouring rain. In just a few heartbeats, his hair was soaked and dripping. He’d be shivering soon—but never mind that. It was too dark out here, stars and moon alike hidden behind black clouds, to really see the charms, but he could feel them, and that was good enough.

The cat’s fang—he wanted, above all, to please himself. Possibly even at Varille’s expense. The dagger—what he would do if he had to. The masks. The eye.

Ziari shivered. Now what? Now to get out of the cold, wet dark. Now to figure out what to do, given that Varille didn’t love him and he was going to be dragged back to Verula—no, he wasn’t. Varille certainly didn’t love him, but Verula was probably not in his future. And even if Varille didn’t love him, it might be that Varille still had some use for him. Maybe. Ziari couldn’t stop shivering.

Even getting back inside and out of the rain wasn’t enough to warm him, it turned out, and his shivers came in waves, subsiding and then coming again, as he descended the stairs. His trousers clung to his legs; while he walked, he started doing some shapeshifting just in case he had to take them off in front of someone. The pain wasn’t any worse for being in a more sensitive area—shapeshifting hurt equally everywhere; he’d even felt the pain in his hair while making it change color—but it didn’t need to be. He’d once set out to try every plausible form of injury in the hope of finding a nice, simple comparison he could use to explain what it felt like; the closest he ever got was a burn, bad enough to blister but not bad enough to go numb, being abraded with coarse sandpaper. Unfortunately, that information tended to alarm people, so Ziari no longer bothered to tell anyone.

He pulled back from the world, from everything. If his body were a castle, then this was like hiding away in a tower rather than patrolling the walls. Shapeshifting hurt, but he could live with it. He couldn’t risk keeping his body how he was comfortable, but so what? It didn’t feel real anyway.

On the torchlit stairs, he saw Arana out of bed talking to Perrin. Perrin spoke softly and Ziari couldn’t make out the words. As he drew closer, he realized Perrin was speaking—fumblingly—in Ouramish, Arana’s mother tongue.

Arana, though, noticed Ziari. “Good evening,” she said in Serinnaise. “Are you well?”

“Just cold,” said Ziari, teeth chattering. “Thank you.”

“You know, of course, that I have a responsibility to make sure my husband isn’t doing things that could embarrass him,” she said. “So if you ever think his behavior is… unworthy of him, come to me.”

“Thank you,” said Ziari. He wouldn’t have even if Varille had ever done anything wrong, but it was downright absurd thinking of Varille ever doing anything to hurt anyone. Varille was perfect. Everything he did was perfect.

That was a dangerous way to think and Ziari forced himself to think of something Varille had done wrong. Trusted that a raven that liked to hang around him wasn’t a shapeshifter—that was a little stupid… but not wrong. Well, there was the fact that he would encourage someone to sin; that was… that actually was wrong; Ziari might not have any rights but he had certainly been as helpful and dedicated as he could manage and repaying that with a betrayal like this might not be illegal, Ziari being Ziari, but it was still gratuitously cruel. And to then throw him out—Ziari didn’t have a clear memory of the exact moment, but he remembered that Varille’s dismissal was absolutely unambiguous—that was even worse.

As soon as he reached Varille’s room, he slammed the door behind him. Varille was waiting, head in his hands, sitting on the edge of his bed, but looked up when Ziari entered.

“You poxy lich,” Ziari hissed, low and vicious. “You’ve got a lot of gall throwing me out at this hour—I can’t just leave the city at night! There are guards at the gate! Well, I refuse to leave without my clothes, anyway, so here I am, back again, whether you want me or not. What do you say to that?”

“That I’m extremely confused. When did I throw you out?”

“Why are you lying to me?” Ziari demanded. Why would Varille deny it? What possible benefit was there for him in lying?

“I’m not,” said Varille, giving a very plausible impression of confusion.

“Oh. Of course. Why did I expect you to answer honestly? You must be laughing at me.” He couldn’t see Varille’s face. He didn’t need to; he knew, with an absolute and unshakable certainty, that Varille held him in contempt. All was lost. “Go ahead and think what you want about me, but you’re no better, using me like you did—like you _did_ ; I’m done with you; I would have left anyway! I want nothing to do with you, you poxy tumor-riddled assrider, so it’s perfectly fine with me that you hate me. It’s always nice when things are symmetrical like that.”

Ziari picked up his dry tunic and put it on, his hands shaking with rage and grief and despair—and, of course, the cold, too.

“I’m confused,” said Varille. “I thought, when you left, that I understood what was happening, but now I don’t.”

“What’s happening is, I’m not just going to accept being thrown out half-naked into the middle of a rainstorm so they can find me and drag me back—” Ziari cut himself off—too late (all was lost), but he did.

“I’m starting to get the impression that I accidentally implied something I didn’t mean,” said Varille.

Ziari wasn’t sure why he would ever care about what Varille thought and said, but that also seemed like the sort of thing he would have paid attention to if he were calmer, so he forced himself to wonder, at least, what he might have taken from that if he weren’t too busy hating Varille to listen to him. Varille was complaining about how he was too stupid to say what he meant—complaining to Ziari for some reason, despite the fact that the two of them now hated each other with the eternal burning fury of the sun. Surely he wouldn’t seek comfort from Ziari, who wouldn’t have given it even if he could, so he was trying to imply that Ziari had misunderstood something. He was clearly trying to call Ziari stupid by implication, stupid for misunderstanding—what? Well, Varille did keep trying to pretend he hadn’t meant to throw Ziari out, but he _clearly_ did mean that, and Ziari knew better than to trust _any_ claims or evidence otherwise. None of Varille’s lies could convince Ziari he was wrong about that.

Varille was quiet, watching Ziari, maybe waiting for an answer Ziari wasn’t ready to give yet.

He was definitely right about Varille hating him and throwing him out and now lying in an attempt to humiliate Ziari by getting him to overstay his welcome. Ziari knew full fucking well that he wasn’t wanted, couldn’t ever be wanted ( _“…need to get away from that man—he’s poison, he’s broken, he’s not even human…”_ ) and certainly wouldn’t be loved by anyone as smart as Varille. But just as a matter of principle, it was a good idea to know of something that could convince him he was wrong. Even though that something would never exist, ever.

He could believe Varille loved him if he were lovable. If he weren’t a monster who ruined everything he touched. Or if he were better at hiding it, of course; he had certainly hidden his nature for months at a time. It was wildly unlikely that Varille didn’t realize what Ziari was _now_ , after what had just happened.

But then again… well, _if_ all wasn’t lost yet, it would probably ruin everything to ask. Of course, since all was lost, there was nothing more to lose—but how to entice Varille to answer?

“The weather’s horrible,” said Ziari. “I’m going to stay here tonight and lie down on your bed without drying off and if you don’t want that you’ll have to drag me off and I’ll scream all the way out of the castle and wake everyone up. Or I can leave without any kind of fuss and just deal with the weather, but only if you make it worth my while.”

“I wish you’d stay,” said Varille. “I know I can’t keep you and I won’t try, but please go knowing I’ll miss you.”

“Uh,” said Ziari, not at all sure what to do now. “Then what can I offer you in exchange for an answer to my question?”

“I might answer as a favor to a friend,” said Varille, “or maybe not at all. Why not just ask?”

A favor to _what_ friend? He couldn’t possibly mean Ziari. Could he? Those sentences sounded as though that was what they meant, but that wasn’t possible.

“What just happened?” asked Ziari. “I got confused and didn’t know what was happening and I… remember remembering that you told me to leave, but I don’t remember it.”

“Oh,” said Varille. He paused, silent, then said that again. He sounded as if he might be working hard to make sense of something. “I’m sorry. What I remember is that we were—doing what we do. I didn’t hurt you—I was about to—but you screamed and ran away from me. You took a defensive stance. Perrin came to check on our safety.”

“ _Your_ safety, you mean.”

Varille smiled wryly. “Mostly. Maybe entirely. You seemed afraid—of me, I thought—so I asked Perrin not to block the door, in case you wanted to run somewhere. You left immediately and reappeared later, dripping wet.”

Ziari nodded slowly, dumbstruck and empty inside, trying to assimilate that information. Of course, Varille still didn’t love him—that was clear—but maybe… maybe he had somewhere to stay tonight? “So, you’re not kicking me out?” he asked.

“No, I’m not,” said Varille.

And with the realization that he was safe and didn’t have a crisis to face right now, Ziari’s thoughts came to a standstill and he sank to the floor, silently shivering.

-~-

Ziari dreamed of snow in Liat that night, but his nightmares were quiet and uneasy. He woke with a sick certainty that something wasn’t right, but he woke calm and quiet.

“You’re awake?” Varille asked as Ziari started to stretch.

“Mm?” Ziari answered about as articulately as he could manage.

“Feeling better?”

Ziari went cold all over. Varille was entirely out of patience with him and all was lost. “Mm,” he said noncommittally in a tone that could be taken as affirmative, maybe.

“I know we already discussed last night, but—forgive me for saying so, but you don’t seem all right lately.”

“I just… need to spend more time at home. You know how travel is.” Ziari continued to lie in bed, as though not getting up to face the day would let him avoid facing this conversation. He had no excuses good enough. Varille had _noticed_ and now nothing could save him.

“I don’t mean to say you’re wrong, but it seems as though it might be more than that,” said Varille.

Out of excuses, nowhere to run, taken by surprise—they were going to drag him back to Verula—all was lost—Ziari fell back on the last thing he could think of: blatant lies.

He sat up and looked Varille in the eye. Varille met his gaze for only a moment before looking away.

“Varille, I swear on my mother’s life, it really is just from traveling,” said Ziari, who had no mother. “I promise this will stop happening if I just stay home for a while.”

Varille was quiet a while before answering.

“All right, then,” he said. “Well, any reason you have to go anywhere can wait until spring. Or better yet, until summer, when the roads won’t be made of mud.”

“I’ll be fine by then,” Ziari lied.

“I hope that’s true. Well, good morning. I’ll see you again tonight.”

And he left to go deal with his responsibilities.

-~-

That day he spent only a couple of hours writing, then gave up and went to the kitchen carrying a bag of knucklebones, a couple of pence to bribe the head cook to let Morelet take the day off, and some half- and quarter-pence for gambling.

The kitchen wasn’t its usual businesslike self when Ziari got there. There were all the usual between-meal chores being done—almonds being ground for milk, various cookware getting cleaned—but all in awkward silence. Someone glanced furtively at Morelet, who was not so much grinding almonds as punishing them with righteous fury.

“Ziari’s here,” someone said, sounding more relieved to see him than anyone else had ever been.

Morelet stopped attacking the almonds and looked at him like a dying man in a desert might look at a particularly convincing mirage.

“Good,” said the head cook. He turned to face Ziari and leaned against the counter. “Take him off my hands. Please.” Ziari reached for his purse, but the cook shook his head. “Just take him and please don’t let him do anything stupid.”

Morelet left gladly—well, he didn’t seem very glad about _something_ , but he did seem glad to be leaving. “I have a favor to ask you,” he said as he followed Ziari away from the kitchen. “I’ll do just about anything to get this done. I’ve had word from Laurens—”

“In this weather?” It wasn’t raining now, but it had been most of yesterday. The roads would already be muddy all over Serinne.

“Some lady wanted a new necklace in time for the new year and it’s not her who has to get rained on all the way here and all the way back. This is the first traveler my friend in Laurens has been able to get to take a message to me since summer and the news is…” Morelet shook his head. “You won’t know any of the people involved. A pair of brothers, Lothair and Jehan, have a childless uncle—his name’s Berthan—that lives in Laurens. They both visit him and his wife a lot, especially Jehan, and help take care of them in their old age because—because they don’t have sons anymore. These brothers, they were heading into town when a madman attacked—they found him dead, someone called Taver—and Lothair’s dead and Jehan took an arrow to the arm and it broke his elbow. So now he only has the one arm to work with and he can’t help… his uncle and aunt with anything. I can’t let my… friend’s acquaintance’s aunt and uncle starve to death alone and unloved. Now I need someone to go back to Laurens as soon as possible—the man who brought me the news will be in Solanne for a while waiting for the jewelry to be finished and I don’t trust him—I need you to go to Laurens and take Berthan and Roaisa all my savings. As fast as you can. I don’t know if it’s too late already.”

At this point, seeing that they weren’t going to end up gambling today, Ziari decided to stop right where they were, in the hallway. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and watched Morelet. Morelet stopped and stood still, awkward as a startled deer.

“So whoever did this ruined everything for your family.”

“My family?”

“Your parents,” said Ziari, “who disowned their only living son. And now they need someone to take care of them in their old age. Like a son. Which they had.”

Morelet seemed to suddenly find the floor very interesting. “I don’t deserve to call them my parents.”

“I’ll help you,” said Ziari. “For your sake, not theirs.” And he could add some gold of his own, and Varille had asked for Ziari’s help paying for the deaths, so Ziari could probably get his help, too… and he’d look good, at least to Varille, if he explained the trip in just the right way.

“Just don’t tell them who it’s from,” said Morelet.

“I won’t.” The better to keep Morelet from finding out that Ziari had contributed anything.

All that remained was to brave the horrible weather.

-~-

When evening came and Varille met Ziari in his room, Ziari seemed all right. Subdued, but not in a panic. After greeting Varille, he continued to sit where he was on Varille’s bed with his knees drawn up to his chest. Varille lit a candle and pondered the matter.

It was clearly not travel in and of itself that was bothering him. For one thing, that was more superstition than fact; for another, while Varille didn’t really know what homesickness and the strain of travel looked like, he knew a few things about danger. The general overwariness Alir had mentioned, and the sudden panic at something not worth panicking over, were too characteristic for anyone familiar with the pattern not to recognize. Varille had seen it in survivors of shipwrecks, afraid of the sea or of ships or of some innocent turn of phrase a sailor had said just before the ship sank that was forever linked—in one man’s memory, if in no other way—to grief and danger. He had seen something similar in Arana, after the hardest of her failed pregnancies, the one that nearly killed her as well as the child. It was even something not unknown in warriors, after routs and ambushes, or after illness burned through the camp like a flame, eating its way through all the exhausted, hungry strangers in close quarters with each other and far from home.

In hindsight, he even knew when it had happened. Ziari had come close to dying while he dealt with the Taverians—maybe while fighting the men he killed, maybe while facing some unrelated danger that could have struck any traveler—and had been reticent because, yes, he was hiding something. But not hiding out of disloyalty; he was either hiding shame or simply unable to speak of whatever had happened.

Whatever it was had happened on Varille’s orders, making it his fault.

“Do you remember I killed someone this summer?”

“More than one,” said Varille. What, they were talking about this now? And without Varille needing to bring it up? Varille sat backwards on his desk chair, leaning forward against the back of the chair, facing Ziari.

“I—misjudged how lethal I was,” said Ziari. “But I killed a man who has a family and I’ve just found out where that family is and I’m going to go pay them off.”

“I’ll pay,” said Varille. “You thought you were acting on my orders. What happened this summer—all of it—is entirely my fault. Though I have to ask—how are you going to explain yourself?”

“Oh, I’m not,” said Ziari. “I’ll just let them wonder.”

Varille smiled. That certainly sounded like fun, for a somewhat idiosyncratic definition of fun. “And I’ll give you ten stars to take them.”

There was a slight pause. “Sure,” said Ziari. “You want to feel better about this whole thing, you do that.”

Ziari was, Varille noticed, not at all hesitant to leave Solanne. That was entirely consistent with the theory that it wasn’t traveling per se, but a specific event that had happened while Ziari was away, that had bothered him so much. And so there was no particular reason to worry about this trip.


	4. Chapter 4

_”The years I've run, I've done no more,”_  
_the fugitive, he said,_  
_"than if I'd hanged for all my crimes;_  
_I might as well be dead._

_"And as a wolf in wild lands_  
_in all my years alone_  
_I've done no good for any man._  
_How can I then atone?"_

—Ballad of Jehan the Thief, traditional Serinnaise ballad

Two days after Ziari left for Perrau, carrying at least two stars of his own and ten of Varille’s, Arana walked into the council room in the middle of a discussion of tariffs.

“We have a problem,” she said, cutting off Bishop Alir midsentence. She shut the door behind her and walked over to the round council table.

Varille stood and offered her his seat. Arana shook her head and stayed standing. She rested her palms on the table, leaned in, and spoke softly.

“Iselle went out today with Severin and Stilla,” she said. Those were Iselle’s bodyguard and maid, who often accompanied her outside the castle. “She was going to heal a man who fell doing some repairs on the Livenite church and broke his back. She never arrived. Severin was found dead in an alley.”

Varille felt a useless stab of fury and fight-readiness, as though he could save her if only he were to run out of here and find the culprit and stab him to death. Useless—a completely _useless_ reaction, when he was a mediocre fighter at best and had no idea who had her. Liat bordered Serinne and they’d warred many times in centuries past; could it be them? It wasn’t Atiron—Arana’s brother wouldn’t kidnap his own niece. It could be Viela, but he couldn’t see why they would. Relations with East Liat weren’t what they had been ten years ago, but they weren’t bad—or were they? Was it pirates, somehow, from Narvage? Was it the Nilkot Empire? Ibentra could be safely ruled out—could have been even if its government weren’t half dead and half in hiding.

“Should I go on here, or would you rather hear the rest in private?” Arana asked, bringing Varille back to the here and now.

“Go on,” he said, reminding himself to focus on her words rather than on his own fear for Iselle.

“I’ve ordered the gates closed to all traffic. _My_ sources”—she added a bit of emphasis, and Varille thought of Ziari, unavailable in this crisis—“tell me we haven’t had too many strangers recently—not this time of year—so we have a full list. Of the strangers who were in the city today, only two still are—someone from Perrau who says he’s here for some jewelry, and someone from the countryside just north of here who says she needed to buy something for her sick infant. I have both in the dungeon and I’ve given orders to search the city in case she’s still here—which I don’t think she is. My best guess—and I hope it’s wrong—is that she’s with the three men from Liat who left before the gates were closed, carrying something large and heavy in an opaque box. The mayor is putting together a party to search for them; I’ve left him my seal to show at the gate. They may be out looking by now, of course—I didn’t stay; I came back to the castle to tell you.”

Varille looked around the table, half hoping that someone would have some brilliant solution. Lady Treasurer Jehanne had gone very pale. Earl Marshall Mivren was tense and silently snarling.

“Well, then,” said Varille, “is your list of strangers written down anywhere? Anyone else on it, besides the five you mentioned?”

“Yes and yes, but I left the list with the mayor. I can have it copied for you.”

“Do that. I don’t want to presume that we know for certain that it was the men from Liat. And even if it was, they might have had help. And… then we’ll want to find her. If the search parties can’t intercept them on their way back to Liat, then we’ll need to find where they take Iselle. We’ll be going to war, too—either to get her back, or in self-defense when they construe our rescue as a trespass—so we’ll need to prepare for that.” Varille sighed and rested his head against the heel of one hand. “When we get the ransom demand, we won’t pay; they will not benefit from this deed.” The hardest part was that there wasn’t anything he, personally, could do right now. He could look over the list and _maybe_ have an epiphany about someone Arana had overlooked—say, someone she didn’t think to put on the list. “Oh, and make another list—people who live in Solanne but aren’t here today.”

“Ziari?” Arrin suggested.

“Add him to the list,” said Varille, “though I’m sure he had nothing to do with this.”

“I don’t think he would have knowingly helped with this, either,” said Arana.

Knowingly.

This was truly an impressively bad day.

-~-

Ziari visited Morelet’s uncle and surviving cousin second, after Morelet’s parents. Jehan lived with his father less than half a day’s easy walk from Laurens, in what was less a tiny farming village and more a small cluster of townsfolk who happened to live outside the walls. There weren’t many people out and about in the rain—Ziari did see a man in a cloak hiding between a little daub-and-wattle hut and a barrel of who-knew-what, but it wasn’t his town or his problem. Other than that, Ziari was the only one not inside under a roof.

A gray-haired, short and solid man who must be Jehan’s father came to the door and planted himself like an army trying to guard a pass. “Who’re you?” he demanded of Ziari.

“I was sent to give you these,” Ziari said instead of an answer, holding out a hand with ten gold stars. Payment for Lothair’s death. Ziari’s own three stars and everything Morelet had sent had gone to Morelet’s parents already.

Jehan’s father frowned at him. “Why?”

“Something to do with your sons. Beyond that, I can’t tell you.” Ziari shrugged. “Take them or don’t.”

He didn’t stop frowning, but he did take the ten stars.

Ziari said a polite goodbye and set off for Laurens to stay the night with his friend and get some food before he had to set off back to Solanne in weather no sensible person would want to travel through.

-~-

Ziari’s friend Thevot, a pious Taverian, offered Ziari a bowl of broad beans homogenized by overcooking and a warm, dry hearth where Ziari had only a small chance of catching on fire while he slept and dried off. Ziari counted himself lucky Thevot hadn’t turned on him yet and accepted the hospitality. He had the sort of dreams that should be funny but were terrifying instead, and in the early morning darkness when he thought he might get a little more sleep before dawn, finally dry and comfortable, his racing heart slowing as he realized he wasn’t about to be dragged away back to Liat, he heard Thevot letting in a couple of guests. Several, by the sound of all their footsteps. Ziari lay still, eyes closed—his face was toward the dim embers of last night’s fire, anyway—and listened.

“So that’s your guest, then?” a strange man asked. He spoke softly, probably trying not to wake Ziari. They must be here to kill him; all was lost.

“That’s my friend,” said Thevot. “He has a decent heart—when he came here before the solstice, he fixed my roof. See how it’s not leaking? That was him. Whatever’s happened, it wasn’t him.”

Ziari started using his shapeshifting. It was hard not to tense up at all—it was hard just not screaming his head off—but he had to, to save himself. At the expense of some lost mobility, he covered the thickest blood vessels in his neck with smooth overlapping bone scales. They wouldn’t do much against an arrow to the throat, but against a knife, cutting rather than stabbing, they’d be something of a surprise. And what else would help now?

“Marcel’s plow-horse is gone,” said the same strange man. Marcel must be a whole village—maybe the one Ziari visited yesterday—because there was no way anyone who didn’t have a title would have his own horse. “Your friend was seen there just before the horse went missing.”

Stronger muscles, Ziari decided, but not much stronger; he didn’t need too much unfamiliarity right now. Maybe some way to startle these people. Light? He knew how to make flesh glow, but he’d need a brighter flash than he knew how to make—rule that out. Maybe sound. He could make himself half-deaf, change his throat a little so he could scream more loudly.

His throat burned with the shift.

“It can’t have been him. What, do you think he hid the horse under his trousers? Search my place if you want; it’s not here,” said Thevot.

That was the last Ziari heard him say; he didn’t hear the reply, either.

Moving as fast and as suddenly as he could, Ziari leapt up, screamed so loudly even his own nearly deaf ears rang, and ran for the door.

He made it out onto the dim twilit street and turned toward the gate, only to realize he couldn’t get out of the city with the gate closed. And he couldn’t hear anyone behind him. Fixing that felt like stabbing himself in the ears, but he didn’t dare risk not hearing something important.

He saw an alley he might duck down and turned. Out of nowhere, flames blazed up across the alley mouth. Ziari overcorrected and nearly fell trying to avoid being burned. He caught his balance and glanced back the way he’d come. The men who’d come for him at Thevot’s had almost caught up with him. One, standing in front of most of the others, had his hands outstretched—toward the flames—and was breathing hard. So he controlled fire? But not an infinite amount of fire; only the way down the alley was blocked off. Ziari turned away from them and took a step. The flames vanished from the alley and appeared in front of him; Ziari stumbled again and stopped. All right; he was trapped. Maybe if he just ran right through and came out burned—and wearing burning clothes, and with his hair on fire? Or…

Another man broke away from the others and sprinted forward. Ziari settled into a defensive stance and tried to catch a blow he thought was meant for his face and—

It wasn’t until he woke up that he realized he’d passed out.

-~-

Ziari woke with a crick in his neck, a terrible ache in his shoulders, a funny feeling in his throat, the sort of double-sided headache that came from hitting something very hard, and his hands tied behind his back. Well, he could do something about the headache; a little shapeshifting to fix his concussion solved most of it. He must have hit his head falling after… after that man whose gift let him put people to sleep touched him. That had to be it. He put his throat back to normal and then, just barely, opened his eyes.

“You should be waking up now,” said an unfamiliar voice. “Don’t bother trying to pretend to be asleep; I know how long I put you out for.”

Ziari opened his eyes all the way, rolled his head around and shrugged his shoulders. In moving his head he noticed the bones he’d put there earlier and decided they weren’t likely to matter now; he got rid of them, wincing. As he tried to get his legs into a more comfortable position, he noticed that his ankles were tied together, with about a foot and a half of rope between them—enough to walk, but not to run.

“I didn’t take your horse,” said Ziari.

“There’s no point in lying. No one will believe you.”

Ziari looked around. He was outside, sitting—kind of them not to make him lie on his bound hands—with his back against a stone wall. Two people—the one calling him a liar, and an Altrist priest whose name, Ziari knew from past visits, was Taver—stood over him. He seemed to be in the town square. There was a gallows in view, of course; more surprisingly, there was a crowd. It wasn’t raining; tall gray clouds blotted out the sky, but here and there shone gold sunlight in the spidery cracks between them. The crowd’s mood was the cruel cheer of people avenging a wrong. That was better than it could have been; he could have been nothing but an excuse for some time off work, the occasion cheerful in spite of Ziari, rather than because of him.

So, how to get out of this?

“Of course, we have to let him _try_ to get you to reconcile with the gods,” said one of his captors, gesturing at the priest. He took several steps back; meanwhile the priest squatted down so he wasn’t standing over Ziari.

“Save it,” said Ziari. “I’m not interested.”

“Why is that?” asked the priest.

“I hope someone sticks a sword up your ass. Your goddess is a cancer and someone should kill her.”

Taver raised his eyebrows a little, but that was all. “I’m sorry to hear that. Regardless, Altri loves you and offers you her mercy—”

“She wouldn’t know mercy if it stuck its dick in her mouth and told her to suck it.”

That got no reaction at all. At least, no visible reaction. “I’m sorry you haven’t experienced her mercy.”

“I wouldn’t want it,” said Ziari, beginning to have a desperate idea. It wouldn’t work, of course—all was lost—but he had to try. “Hey, how do you like knowing I’ll go to my grave hating your goddess? Knowing you failed and she’ll never get whatever she wanted out of me? I’ve never praised the gods in my life.” That was a lie, but he hadn’t praised them in years, at least. “How do you like knowing you couldn’t make me?”

“It makes me sad,” said the priest.

“And you’ll have to admit your failure. Not just that you haven’t fixed me yet—that you never will. I’ll be dead and you’ll have to admit you failed. You will never have another chance.”

“I know,” said the priest. He sighed. “You’re right; I hate knowing that. Sometimes it’s hard to accept that the gods aren’t always able to help people like you.”

“Don’t you wish you had longer?”

“Yes, but I know I can’t always get everything I want.”

“Sometimes it’s worth trying.”

“Sometimes,” Taver agreed. He smiled sadly. “Yes. And it’s important to know when to try and when it’s not worth it.”

“I know Bishop Alir personally,” said Ziari, which was a wild overstatement but not totally wrong.

“It’s best not to lie. The gods don’t like it.”

“It’s best not to break the king’s law and kill people when he’s commanded that only traitors should be executed. It’s best not to punish the innocent at all.” Ziari sighed. “I don’t suppose you want to bet on the outcome of my trial, do you? Because if you did, I bet I could die rich.”

Taver’s lips twitched as if he found that funny. “I have bad news for you,” he said. “They’re done deciding your guilt.”

While he was asleep, then. And they hadn’t even let him speak in his own defense. Not that it would have mattered. All was lost. All was lost. All was lost.

But the important question was what the priest thought of that.

“Bad news for me, maybe,” said Ziari. “Good news for you, I’m sure. After all, if you hadn’t wanted me dead, you could have saved me.”

“Serinne isn’t a theocracy; I have to respect the secular government,” said the priest. “Even if I were sure you were innocent”—he smiled wryly—“I can’t judge a layman. I’m sorry. You don’t have to believe I am—I wouldn’t, if it were me being hanged for vagrancy—”

“What?” Ziari exclaimed. “I thought it was for horse theft!”

“For both,” said Taver, “and for every crime that’s been committed here in the past few months.”

“But—vagrancy?” Ziari demanded, as though shocked. “Vagrancy! I never!” He straightened his shoulders and glared at Taver, all righteous indignation. “I was willing to trust the gods,” he declaimed, loudly and clearly, hoping to be heard by as many people as possible, “and let happen what would! I was willing to allow the people of this town to continue on their evil path and learn too late against whom they have sinned; I would have allowed the gods to wreak my vengeance for me after my death. But to call me a vagrant? I can be silent no longer! I am a churchman! I am a man sworn to Altri, whom you presume to accuse of vagrancy!”

Taver’s eyes went wide and he smiled the small, perplexed smile of someone who couldn’t quite believe his good luck. “Oh, really,” he said, sounding deeply sarcastic. He smiled wryly and looked (almost over his shoulder) at the man who’d captured Ziari. “I need the _Merciful Lady_.”

That was the passage—a line of a Litan hymn—that was always used as a test of Litan literacy, which was rare enough among layfolk and common enough among the clergy that anyone who could read it could safely be tried by one of the churches. (Particularly since most of the few literate layfolk were nobles and it was tacitly understood that it was just fine if they got off easy. In fact—in Liat, at least—Ziari had heard of illiterate nobles being granted the same benefit on the very thinnest of pretexts.)

Sleepy-hands told someone else to go fetch a hymnal, which someone promptly went off to do. Ziari took note of the expressions on every face he could see from where he sat; what he saw wasn’t encouraging. He might only succeed in turning these people against their own priest.

“If you want my advice, leave Serinne if you survive today,” Taver murmured, so softly Ziari could barely hear him. He was almost certainly inaudible to everyone else, and no one but Ziari could see his face at the moment. Unless, of course, someone’s gift allowed that. “After what happened in Solanne, no one here is feeling very friendly toward people from Liat.”

Someone would surely see Ziari’s lips move if he answered, and that would reveal that Taver had said something, and that could hurt Taver. Ziari stayed quiet and didn’t ask what had happened in Solanne.

Soon, they were provided with a hymnal. Taver held it so Ziari could see and pointed to the beginning of the traditional line. “Start here,” he said.

“Have mercy on me, Lady of Mercy,” Ziari read aloud in a clear voice, “according to your unfailing kindness.”

“He memorized that,” said Sleepy-hands, scowling deeply. Taver blinked, glanced at him, then looked back to Ziari, looking surprised.

His surprise didn’t come through in his voice, though. “Continue,” he said calmly.

Ziari read on. He didn’t understand every word, but he read them as if he did, making sure his voice was confident. He read the entire rest of the page aloud.

“He’s mine,” said Taver. “I find him innocent of the crimes he stands accused of. Now, Ziari, since you’re a churchman, what are you doing wearing dyed clothing? And jewelry? And the things you said to me before! And were you given permission from your bishop to wear shoes, or is that a sin, too? Hmm?” Taver grinned. Ziari, with effort, forced himself not to, though it was a close thing; it seemed Taver had the same idea Ziari did about dealing with these people’s anger. The mood of the crowd seemed to be turning toward cheerfulness again. Ziari might yet get out of this alive.

-~-

Ziari ran—literally ran, fighting to pull his bare feet out of the mud and then splashing right back down, panting and desperate. He wasn’t being pursued in any truly dangerous way; there was every reason to believe he would be fine if he kept running. He held his bracelet in his right hand; his left had Altri’s star burned onto the palm. His back stung from a whipping, but it wasn’t a bad one, really; the skin was mostly just sore, only broken in a couple of places. Without rain, he was warmer than he could have been, despite wearing nothing but a threadbare undyed linen chemise.

Clever, merciful, courageous Taver had helped him keep his bracelet, so he was alive. He was a shapeshifter, so his wounds and his shaved head could be fixed easily later.

There was just one problem. They’d herded him east to start off with and although they weren’t shouting at him to go back to Liat anymore, he didn’t dare be seen turning north or south yet. Not until he was out of sight of the town.

He ran, and ran, and ran. His throat and lungs burned. His legs ached. At one point he moved one arm just right to yank away the cloth that had gotten stuck to his bleeding back; it stung worse and just ended up sticking again. The sun set behind him and he slowed his pace, but didn’t dare stop entirely; he walked all through the night, looking around him for new enemies, or people from Laurens come to kill him after all, or an ambush waiting to drag him back to Verula. It rained that night and Ziari kept moving to keep himself warm.

The sun rose and he kept walking, slowly now, every step a struggle, hoping to find somewhere he could hide and turn into a bird to fly back to Solanne.

He finally came upon the remnants of a ruined castle, mostly cannibalized for stone for new buildings. Three walls of the lowest floor of the keep still stood, jagged moss-covered ruins that stepped rather than sloped down to the ground. Nearby was a tower, now down to about three feet tall—a very short tower—and part of one outer wall, which stood more than seven feet tall now. Someone had partly hollowed it out, making a narrow corridor closed on three sides. Ziari looked inside, saw no one else using it, and holed up there. He’d sooner face any thieves who used this place than face a town of good decent folks like Laurens again. He really needed to shapeshift—he had wounds to heal and his bald head was losing too much heat in this weather—and he was so wet and cold sleep would be dangerous and he didn’t dare to let his guard down…

-~-

There was nothing but the certain knowledge of loneliness. Loneliness or solitude, either way; it was eternal, with neither beginning nor end, and time did not pass, and there was nothing else but that sure knowledge; there had never been anything else.

“…up, wake up, wake up, damn you!” someone was saying, quietly and urgently. Ziari realized he had been dreaming—if thoughts so vague could be called a dream—and opened his eyes. He was warm—too hot, in fact. Too hot, in drizzling rain and wearing almost nothing. Too hot, in early winter.

“I think I’m dying,” Ziari said indifferently. He closed his eyes again.

“Get up,” the stranger growled in an accent that made it clear he was from Liat. Evil man. Maybe he was here to take Ziari back to Verula, but it was all right, because Ziari would die instead and everything would be just fine.

The stranger grabbed Ziari under his arms and hauled him to his feet—definitely dragging Ziari away to Verula. Ziari tried to punch him and only hit empty air. The stranger laughed. Ziari was going back to Verula and there they would do worse than kill him and all was lost and all was lost and all was lost. He tried to strangle himself and accidentally smacked himself on the chin instead, which made him so angry at the stranger that he tried to punch him again. This time Ziari managed to just graze the stranger’s arm.

 _He_ had never been warned ( _…clumsy and say they’re hot… now, you, Tinalu, you ever get lost in the snow, you go right ahead, take your clothes off and bury yourself in snow and freeze, save me the trouble of killing you_ ) but Ziari knew all this meant he was dying of cold and probably wasn’t thinking clearly and all was lost and he couldn’t keep himself from being dragged back to Verula and all was lost.

All the while, the stranger laughed and dragged him over to what had been the keep. The stranger had fastened a cloak to the west wall and to the ground, sloping down to make a sort of tent, and a little ways away from that, near the corner between the west and north walls, partly shaded from the rain coming in from the west, he had started a fire.

“Come on,” said the stranger, dragging Ziari over to the makeshift tent. “I probably don’t mean to kill you. So sit and get warm.”

“Probably?” Ziari echoed, wondering if he could change the stranger’s mind. He was great at changing minds. Whenever anyone liked him, he convinced them not to.

The stranger had no trouble at all wrestling Ziari to the ground—in fact, it was mostly a matter of not continuing to hold him up.

“Can you go under the cloak?” the stranger asked.

There was a fire and Ziari was so hot, but it didn’t make sense for him to be too hot and did make sense for him to be so cold he couldn’t tell the difference anymore. Promising himself it would cool him off, he tried to crawl toward the fire. It was so forbiddingly hot—the day was sweltering—he should really get around to not being confused one of these days, yes, eventually. Oh, but the stranger. The stranger was going to drag him back to Verula. Ziari yelped and sat up and faced the stranger, who was on his hands and knees under the cloak.

“If you take me to Liat, I will kill you,” said Ziari. “And then I’ll kill you again. And then I’ll stab you. And then I’ll hurt you. And then I’ll make you regret everything.”

“I don’t mean to kidnap you, I swear,” said the stranger. “I don’t even want to kidnap anyone. I never would. Now come here. You’re blue because you’re so cold. I will not tell you what I want from you before you’re warm.”

“No, tell me now,” said Ziari.

“When you’re warm,” said the stranger, “then I will ask you to come with me and speak to people because you are Serinnaise and they know I’m not when I speak Serinnaise.”

Not Verula? Ziari let himself relax. Whatever happened, he would just let it happen. As long as he didn’t have to go to Verula.

Soon he noticed himself drifting off again and didn’t try to fight it.

-~-

There was blood seeping into the dirt and making mud of it and the only escape from the mud was the endless rye beneath the sunlit gray clouds. Ziari knew it was a dream, but willing himself to wake up wasn’t working and he couldn’t find a better place to be. He knew, too, that if he were awake he would understand that there was nothing to fear from rye fields and blood and a gray cloudy sky. That didn’t matter, either. There was no escape, not even into waking life. Or maybe it was waking life that was the dream. Maybe he would wake in Verula. Maybe he wasn’t even Ziari.

Someone nudged him awake. Ziari gasped and looked around frantically. Oh. Yes. There was the cloak and there was the fire, still burning, sheltered by the ruins all around. There was a hobbled horse, lying near the wall. And there was the Liaten stranger, looking inexplicably nervous.

“Sorry,” said the stranger. “You looked like a nightmare, so I woke you.”

“Thanks,” said Ziari. “For waking me and for… the other things.” The words came out sounding almost normal, for all that they threatened to choke him. To have been saved by this monster was a horror beyond imagining; Ziari had to hope he wasn’t about to vomit, had to fight to keep from screaming. Recognizing a debt to this Liaten beast was like looking down at his stomach and noticing maggots burrowing into him.

Then again, Ziari was also a monster, so saving him was bad, so this monster had not done anyone any favors. Ziari felt a little less sick thinking of it like that.

“You mean for saving your life. You’re welcome, and now you will help me.” The stranger was relaxing a bit now. “I am Lina, son of Ver. I am sworn to Lord Komad and I am going back to him. My Serinnaise is not perfect and they mean to kill me if they know I’m not from here. You are Serinnaise and they will not know I’m Liaten if I don’t talk. You’ll talk. I’ll pay for new clothes for you and we’ll go to Liat together.”

Ziari would rather choke this creature to death than escort him back to his evil homeland.

“I’m not going to Liat,” said Ziari. “I’m not leaving Serinne. And why would anyone want to kill you for being Liaten?” Besides Ziari, who would kill them all if it were practical, most people in Serinne didn’t seem to care much that Liat was full of evil monsters. “Serinne’s been at peace with Liat for a hundred and nineteen years.”

“The problem is new,” said Lina. “They think we—what do you call it, stealing a person? Someone doesn’t mean to go with you but you choose that he does?”

“Kidnapping? Liat kidnapped someone? Who?”

“I don’t know who. I think… they didn’t tell most commoners yet, but I heard them talk about why they want to take me back to Solanne, and one of the men, she said they wanted to save someone.”

“She? Or he?” Liaten didn’t distinguish—man or woman, everyone was _ta_ —so Ziari assumed it was a mistake on Lina’s part.

Lina blinked. “He. Sorry. But they do tell people they’re looking for three men from Liat and they’re very angry about us. They have horses and we didn’t, so they were faster.”

“So you stole Marcel’s,” said Ziari. “And that’s him.”

“But you don’t mean to tell anyone,” said Lina. “I saved your life. You’ll save mine.”

“So if everyone’s looking for you and we’re about to go to war, you can’t just walk into Liat anyway, no matter how Serinnaise you seem. What you want to do is find a port and sail somewhere else—Viela would be best—and then take another ship once you’re there. I think…” Ziari considered Serinne’s ports. There were a number of tiny coastal fisheries that would have ships, but where strangers would be rare and notable; all of those could be ruled out, leaving only the four major ports. Of them, Rolin was on an island; to get there, they’d have to reach some other port first anyway. Lisse could be reached overland, but only by walking through bandit-haunted woods—perfectly possible, sometimes safer than going by sea, but they’d need to pass right by Solanne anyway, so why not Solanne? They’d recognize Lina there and the suggestion would seem suspect. “I think we’ll need to go south now, then south and west to Chenarre. Why are we traveling at this time of year? I think maybe you can’t talk because of apoplexy and we’re going to Atiron because the doctors there are better. It’s urgent that we get to one as soon as possible. Why are we able to travel? We can’t be serfs. We’re the two eldest sons of a free farmer, who lives in Sarn and holds more than a knight’s fee, so he can afford to send us to Atiron—but not much more; he can’t be well-known in Chenarre. In fact, what if we’re not brothers? We don’t look that much alike. We could be members of the same guild—no, master craftsmen are known and we’d go to the guild hall for help. A pair of journeymen who were working in the same town, your master was willing to help you—I don’t have a journeyman badge but I could pass as a chandler or a tailor otherwise.”

“I can be the journeyman and you can be something else. You are a slave, really, right? Running away?”

“You’re speaking of our disguise, of course,” said Ziari, fighting back the urge to break Lina’s neck. “No, I don’t think that would work. A free servant, maybe. One who worked for the master you were studying under. You’re a… show me your hands.”

Lina held out his hands, palms up, for Ziari’s inspection. Calloused, and not particularly typical of a tailor’s hands or a chandler’s. Ziari grunted.

“You’re a blacksmith and I don’t know the first thing about your craft. You would, but you can’t talk—that’s part of why we need the doctor. We’re from the town of Tasin, in southeastern Sarn. Now we just need a pair of Serinnaise names. I’ll be Taver and you’re… Girout. Journeyman blacksmith Girout of Tasin, who was working for Master… Mesend? There is a Master Mesend in Tasin—would you rather we make someone up?”

“You’ve been to Tasin and met this Master Mesend?” asked Lina. “So you’ll know the answers if someone asks about him?”

“Unless he’s changed a lot since I was there last,” said Ziari.

“Then I mean to do that. I think it’s the better risk. So! We should go now. There isn’t sun very long in winter and we need a place to find clothes for you.”

“And a hat,” said Ziari, stretching. He didn’t feel very rested, but if he had to get moving, then he had to get moving. “And while we’re by ourselves on the road, I want you to tell me the news from Solanne.”

-~-

Ziari let Lina gossip and feed him and steal some clothing for him—a coif, a wool cloak, old patched trousers, shoes with another month or so of life left in them—and then played the part Lina wanted him to play at the next town they came to, lying their way into an inn. Then, with Lina safe inside, Ziari promised to come right back, and walked out.

He arrived in Solanne some time later, neither knowing nor caring what might have happened to Lina.

Well, no, that wasn’t true. He worried that leaving Lina alive could come back to bite him, and at various times on the long walk home, he found that fear gnawing at his belly, making him too queasy to eat any of the terrible food he found at the inns along the way.

There was some discussion—mostly away from Ziari and out of his earshot—that seemed to be about him, but regardless, he was eventually welcomed back and asked to go wait in Varille’s room once he got his sopping wet cloak off. Ziari obeyed without question, taking small and temporary comfort in the fantasy that if he just did as he was told, he wouldn’t be cast out or killed.

Eventually, not too long after sunset, Varille came to him.

“I missed you,” Varille said as he lit his candle.

Once there was light, Ziari got up off Varille’s bed and tried to get a good angle to actually see Varille’s face.

He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. By the way his hair hung around his face and glistened in the candlelight, it looked like he might not have washed it that morning, and possibly not the day before, either. He had a hungry look, desperate and longing.

“You look awful and I’m not kissing you until you shave,” said Ziari, who, lacking a razor, had used his shapeshifting to get rid of his beard as he neared Solanne, just as he’d used it to grow back his hair and heal his back.

Varille smiled, but his smile seemed tired. “We have something of an emergency,” he said. “Iselle has been kidnapped. We have a ransom note from the king of Liat—not, mind, that the note _claims_ to be from him—”

“How do you know it is, then?” asked Ziari.

Varille arranged some things on his desk, so that two letters shared the spotlight. “This one,” he said, pointing to the one on the right, “is the ransom note.” Ziari looked; it was in Litan. “And this one,” he said, pointing to the one on the left, “is a letter I received a year ago. Compare the handwriting.”

That one was also in Litan. Ziari read them both as well as he could, silently, because he really wanted to read Varille’s private correspondence. Unfortunately, he only understood parts of the two letters.

But the handwriting was certainly similar. In fact, Ziari recognized both samples as belonging to Altri—not the goddess, but a scribe named after her. That, or one or both was a great forgery of his script. “I think I know the scribe,” said Ziari. “He does work for Liat’s king—or did eleven years ago. So what does it say?”

“That if I pay four thousand stars to a certain person in Malito who is _definitely_ working alone, and surrender all of Serinnaise Supran and Metrive to this person who is definitely not an agent of Liat’s crown, Iselle will be returned to me alive and unharmed. If I don’t comply by Altri’s Day, she’ll be killed. Well, the note says _he’ll_ be killed—but that’s a mistake I hear often, from Liaten speakers.”

“Not all of them,” said Ziari.

“No, you’re right. Not all. I know one man who speaks Serinnaise like a native and even mimics regional accents perfectly. Most people—”

“Not Altri,” said Ziari. “This scribe wouldn’t make that mistake.”

“I’ve had official correspondence from their king that used the wrong pronouns.”

“Maybe you have,” said Ziari, “but was it from this scribe?”

“I don’t know,” Varille admitted, “but it isn’t rare.”

“It’s rare from Altri. He wouldn’t make that mistake.”

“Altri is the scribe? A male scribe?”

“Yes.”

“Well. I’ll look through some old correspondence and see if you’re right,” said Varille. “I don’t suppose you’ll help?”

“I don’t read Litan,” said Ziari. “I’m going to sleep.”

And he did.

-~-

With Varille about, constantly making soft sounds, and with Perrin standing guard, Ziari didn’t waste nearly as much time lying awake in fear as he had on the road alone.

It was raining as Ziari lay, passive and exhausted, beneath some overhang somewhere, eyes closed, watching the stranger who examined him and ran greedy fingers over him—

Ziari woke, tired and uneasy, exhaustion pinning him to Varille’s feather bed. He didn’t even want to open his eyes, tired and dry. “You still here?” he asked Varille, hoarsely.

“I’m still here,” Varille answered. “Still working. Sure you can’t help me?”

Ziari made a vaguely affirmative noise and fell asleep.

Exhausted and longing for sleep, Ziari flew to the far corners of the earth, amid cracks of thunder and hailstones hurting down and down, some as big as Ziari himself. He knew he was dreaming, and settled into it, willing the sky to clear. It did clear, but to night, not to blue day. The stars sang to him of knowledge old and forgotten, essential and inhuman, poetic and impossible, revelations beyond revelations that gave way to sudden emptiness and falling, wingless, through an airless black sky. He woke with the idea of fear and understanding, but without any new knowledge, whether of wonders or terrors.

Something was wrong.

He sat up uneasily and saw Varille’s room in the candlelight, but not Varille. In the dim and flickering light, the old murals covering every wall might have been hunters in the forest, stalking him, ready to kill him. Ziari leapt out of bed, glancing wildly around the room, and told himself (and told himself again and still didn’t believe it) that he was safe here, guarded, at the highest part of the highest tower of the castle. Every aspect of the castle’s design was carefully chosen to make it as hard as possible for any enemy to attack this very room.

But, of course, he might be attacked by the guards. By Arana. By Varille himself. By anyone. No one could want Ziari to live.

Ziari bit himself.

He let out one long, shuddering sigh, then drew a slow, deep breath.

He took his arm out of his mouth and pulled his sleeve back down over it. What now? Where was Varille? Had something happened to him? Ziari could figure it out.

His feet hurt like the bones were being pulled apart with each step as he shuffled, stiff and aching, out of Varille’s room and onto the narrow, tightly-spiraling staircase. Perrin was sitting on the steps, with a candle sitting beside him. He looked back over his shoulder and upward at Ziari.

“Good… morning?” Ziari guessed.

“It’s not even midnight yet,” said Perrin.

“Where’s Varille?”

“Finding letters from the king of Liat. Comparing the handwriting to the ransom note, I think. Evidently, the letters he keeps in his own room aren’t enough of a sample to compare it against.”

“Hm,” said Ziari. “Thanks.”

He went back to bed and lay awake for a while, imagining all sorts of attacks and trying to focus only on the soft bed and how tired he was.

Varille came back while Ziari lay awake, and sorted some more letters, and Ziari slept.

-~-

The castle ceased to exist and Ziari fell and landed hard on the bare dirt near a field of rye. Above him, the sky was dark with clouds, but here and there the sun shone through. They were all around him, united in condemnation, joyous in their certainty of purpose and confident in their righteousness. Ziari woke, screaming.

Almost immediately, Perrin opened the door without bothering to ask anyone’s permission.

“A nightmare,” said Varille. “And you can tell Arana I wasn’t even touching him this time.”

It was still dark. Ziari began to comprehend the gravity of his mistake. It was hardly the first time he had panicked at something he shouldn’t have—even in front of Varille—but that only meant he didn’t have the excuse that it wouldn’t happen again.

“I don’t think traveling is good for me,” Ziari said, not for the first time. It wouldn’t help; Varille would realize there was no cause and no reason for this beyond Ziari’s blatant disregard for anyone else’s comfort. “I’m sorry to worry you.” He wasn’t really. He didn’t, if he was honest with himself, feel _guilty_ for alarming everyone in earshot; he only worried about what they would do to him. All was lost.

“Hey, it’s less boring than waiting by myself for nothing to happen all night,” said Perrin. “Don’t worry about it. Scream more if you need anything.”

Around then, Ziari heard Arana’s maid ask if anything was happening; Perrin politely took his leave of Varille and shut their door behind him. Ziari listened to him talking softly to the maid, at least until Varille spoke up, closer and not whispering to someone else.

“Are you all right?” Varille asked. “What’s been upsetting you so much lately?”

Ziari shrugged. “Just too much travel. You know what they say about wandering.”

“Then why did you go to Laurens?”

“Because Morelet needed my help.” Only for Morelet would he help those ungrateful monsters. “I’ll… be better when I’ve been home longer. I’m so sorry I startled you.” Varille wouldn’t believe that; it wasn’t enough; it was _obvious_ something was seriously wrong with him. Ziari had to fight to keep his breathing even, while pinpricks of cold pain danced all along his skin. He was going to be cast out. All was lost.

“Don’t worry about that,” said Varille. “But are you sure staying here a while will be enough?”

No. It wouldn’t. “Why shouldn’t it be?” Because the problem was inherent in Ziari. “Traveling is hard.” And Ziari was broken. Worthless to anyone else. _He_ liked himself, but no one else could.

“I really think staying home might not be enough,” said Varille.

Ziari felt a stab of sheer panic. He was up and out of bed before he knew what he was doing, and stopped himself when he realized that it would do more harm than good to break Varille’s neck and then carry him up to the roof and then throw him off.

That, and Perrin would step in before Ziari managed it.

But now Varille had seen him about to attack. Ziari would definitely be cast out now. All was lost. All was lost. All was lost. All was lost. All—

“What was that for?” Varille asked.

“Oh,” Ziari lied, surprising himself with how steady his voice was, “I just don’t think I can get back to sleep right now. I’m a little antsy.”

Varille nodded thoughtfully. “Well… in that case, maybe you’d like to know what I’ve found out about the note.”

“Sure,” Ziari said with false but plausible cheerfulness. Sometimes he amazed himself, speaking both casually and coherently while wondering whether he should kill himself so he could ensure it was as painless as possible, rather than allow Varille to choose the method. All was lost, after all.

“It’s probably a forgery. I’ve sorted through every letter I could find from Liat’s king. This scribe—Altri, you called him?—has written several others, and never made this sort of mistake. I have seen the mistake, rather often, but only in letters written by other hands. It was made to look like a letter from Liat’s king. I can only suspect that someone wants war. Someone in Malito? Someone with an agent in Malito? Someone _not_ in Malito, expecting that I won’t pay—expecting that I won’t even try to negotiate? I don’t know. Someone wants Serinne and Liat at war, and has—had—the ability to kidnap someone from Solanne. Her bodyguard is dead and her maid is missing. Why is he dead? Were they not able to subdue him without killing him? Not strong enough? Or did they need to silence him, so he couldn’t call for help? But then why didn’t Iselle scream? Or her maid? Of course, the maid could be part of it. I wish I knew. I’ve been thinking about this all night—I’ve been thinking about it for days—I haven’t stopped thinking about Iselle for a moment since she was taken.”

Of _course_ Iselle had been taken; why shouldn’t bad things happen, terrible things, unthinkable things, given that Ziari existed and all was lost and the world was hateful and everything was all wrong?

“So now you need to figure out who benefits from a war,” said Ziari.

“That,” said Varille, “is unfortunately too easy. The swordsmiths. The horse trainers. The armorers. The Nilkot Empire. Quite possibly the West and parts of Lisse and the Elfland, but I wouldn’t want to wager on that and I suspect that no one in either of those places wants to take the risk, or so I hope. Possibly East Liat, but with Ibentra in chaos and half-conquered, I would expect them not to try such a thing _now_. People with too many children and a desire to see their own kin die. The people of Supran. The Garmen. Maybe even Viela, but that seems unlikely and unusually cruel for King Ninor.”

“Oh,” said Ziari. “Is that all?”

“I doubt it. There’s never a shortage of young men seeking blood and glory. I can see some possible economic benefit in it for Solanne’s artisans, too—we’re away from the border here, and a Liaten attack by sea would need to pass by Hound Isle and its navy. Meanwhile if—never mind. My point is, any number of people in Solanne might be optimistic about war with Liat. And that’s only the people of Serinne and foreign crowns; would anyone within Liat benefit? You used to live there; what do you think?”

“Um,” said Ziari. It had been too long since he’d lived in Liat—now _that_ was something he never expected to think—and back then, he hadn’t exactly known a lot about politics. “There are swordsmiths there, too. And there are… a lot of very evil people in Liat. I couldn’t give you a list.”

“So now we don’t know who has Iselle. I could try hunting down this person’s associate in Malito.”

“What, pretend to pay?”

“Maybe.” Varille shrugged. “I’ll think of something. They _will_ deliver her to me unharmed and they _will_ suffer for having dared to touch her.”

“Why don’t the kidnappers expect that?”

“They clearly think they have some protection from my wrath. Maybe they’re not in Serinne… but if they’re elsewhere, why don’t they expect me to demand that they be handed over to me and threaten war over it? A prince, or someone equally worth going to war over? Or an outlaw who doesn’t expect to be caught?”

“Like the ones in the Northwood.”

They were both silent a while.

Ziari spoke again: “I promised I’d deal with them, in exchange for the Lanians’ safety. I could go and see if they have her.”

“But why would they want—? Oh, to draw manpower to the east, away from fighting them. Maybe in preparation for something that I would otherwise feel compelled to send my own men to stop.”

“Maybe,” Ziari agreed. “You want me to go spy on them for you and see if they have her?”

“Yes,” Varille said without the slightest hesitation.

Yes, he wanted Ziari gone, and he hadn’t even had to think about it.

“It’s not the season for this,” said Ziari. “You’ll pay double.”

“That’s fine,” Varille said, too fast, not even trying to haggle with him.

Varille would pay any amount to be rid of Ziari. Ziari struggled to keep himself from breaking Varille’s nose right then and there. Instead, he dug his nails into his palms and bit his tongue hard. It didn’t help as much as he would’ve liked.

After everything. After Ziari had gone to Verula for him. After all the nightmares and all the quiet, polite answers while his soul burned with the fury of Lani’s forest fires, still, _still_ Varille wanted him gone. Because everyone wanted him gone. Because no matter what he did—no matter if he spied and risked more and worse than his life, no matter how many times he mended that damned roof or cleaned Thevot’s whole house—it not only didn’t ensure him a permanent welcome, it didn’t ensure him _any_ welcome. He had often thought that if he just hid what a monster he was and tried to help people, he could win himself some unknown and unknowable amount of tolerance, so that there would be some time, some unknown length of time, after he did something nice, when he wouldn’t be hated.

Belatedly, he realized that arriving in town, paying people significant sums of money, and immediately being arrested, proved that wasn’t true. He couldn’t buy tolerance. Even _while_ he was helping people, they _already_ hated him. Because when Ziari did things, even things that would have been nice if done by someone else, they were inherently wicked and twisted acts of the utmost evil. Everything Ziari did was horrible.

And Varille knew it.

“If it came down to it,” said Ziari, seized by a sudden need to hear an answer he already knew, “assuming those were the only choices, would you want me to die to save her?”

“Yes, but I’d much rather it not come to that.”

He’d worried that the answer might make him angrier, but it didn’t. He went cold and calm and horribly empty. He who had risked his own soul for his love wasn’t worth the loss of one sixteen-year-old daughter.

Varille didn’t share Ziari’s devotion. It would be unreasonable, Ziari knew, to expect it of him.

It would be absurd to expect it of anyone.

“We’ll talk about it some more in the morning, of course,” said Ziari, turning away to pick up his cloak. “I can’t sleep yet. I’m going to go walk around for a while.” He pulled his cloak on and crossed the room.

“Sure. Of course. And then tomorrow, you’ll go and see if you can find my daughter.”

“See you in the morning,” Ziari said as he shut the door behind him.

-~-

Varille, of course, would have slept—if he had slept—in the highest room in the castle. That was where Ziari generally slept, when he was in Solanne. Right beneath them, Arana and Iselle shared a room with each other and their maids. Besides them, no one else regularly slept in a bedroom in a tower. Ziari made his way, quietly, to the hall on the ground floor. In the morning, Varille set his throne up on the dais at one end of the hall and held court; in the afternoon, the place was filled with long trestle tables and benches, so dinner could be served; and at night, as now, most of the castle’s residents slept together. Ziari stepped carefully over bodies in the deep darkness, scrutinizing shadows to see if they were people before each and every step. Even so, he stepped on a bit of cloth and heard a voice: “mm?” a man murmured sleepily. “Who’s there?”

“Just Ziari,” Ziari whispered.

The man made a disgusted noise, but quietly, and said nothing else.

Ziari made his way out to the yard into the rainy night and pulled up his hood. He crossed the yard, avoiding, as much as he could, the mud, walking instead over stone paths. Occasionally, there was a depression in the stone and Ziari stepped into a puddle with a soft splash. Someone listening closely might have heard; that didn’t bother Ziari, who wasn’t trying to move silently, just softly enough to be considerate of all the people sleeping.

He came to the gatehouse. Both portcullises were down and the drawbridge was up; there was no entrance to the short tunnel from either direction without the help of the guard on duty tonight. That, or a battering ram, but that seemed like overkill.

“So who’s on duty tonight?” Ziari asked.

“It’s me, Floquart. …Ziari?”

“That’s me. How are things?”

“Could be better. I wanted to be with my wife tonight—not like _that_ ,” he said when Ziari snickered. “I mean, I wanted to be with her because we’re expecting our third child soon and now she doesn’t have anyone with her now.”

“Soon like tonight?”

“Tonight or tomorrow or the next day… any time now. She could be in labor right now and I wouldn’t even know.”

“That’s awful,” said Ziari. “I could go look in on her, if you want.”

“If she’s not in labor, she’s probably asleep,” said Floquart. “I wouldn’t want to wake her up. Thank you, though.”

“All right. Well, I was going to ask you to open the gates, regardless,” said Ziari.

“It’s after curfew.”

“I know. I just want to go for a walk.”

“So do I, but it’s after curfew,” said Floquart.

“Oh, all right,” said Ziari. “I can just climb the wall, dive into the moat and swim across.”

“Don’t… don’t do that. I mean, you can, I can’t stop you, but… you might die.”

“I won’t, then,” said Ziari. “You don’t mind if I sit here and we talk, do you?” he asked, sitting down with his back against the inner portcullis.

“I’d love someone to talk to. I hate these long night watches.”

“They must be terrible.”

“Oh, yes. A waste of time and then I’m tired all the next day.”

“Do they at least pay you extra?”

Floquart snorted. “Of course not.”

“No? And they’ve got you on duty with your child about to be born?”

“Well, it’s not as though I’m the only one worried about family.”

“You shouldn’t have to be, though.”

“Thanks. You know, she screamed last time. I can’t stop thinking about that. About her screaming with no one there—just our daughters, but our oldest is four.”

“I can go find her house and listen for screams if you want,” said Ziari.

“And if the night watch catches you, you’ll blame me,” said Floquart.

“I won’t!” Ziari exclaimed, with calculated offense. “What have I ever done to make you think I would? When I came to Solanne, did I pretend I served a master in another town? After Varille invited me in as a guest, did I ever claim I was acting on his authority?”

There was silence for a moment. Well, not complete silence; occasionally, small drops of rain fell lightly into shallow puddles.

“No,” Floquart answered after a while. “You’ve always been honest in _that_. I’m sorry I said otherwise.”

“It’s all right. What, should you watch every vagrant you meet in case he has _one_ virtue?” Ziari was treading a rather narrow path here; he could repeat other people’s assessments of him, to the very people who first made them, in their own words, and be accused of fishing for compliments. That was because other people held their beliefs for good and virtuous reasons, but Ziari believed things because he was inherently tainted.

“You don’t get many people noticing your good points, do you?”

“I don’t have many good points,” Ziari said casually. That might be pushing it; Floquart might deny what Ziari already knew he believed. Ziari felt himself break out into a cold sweat.

“True enough,” Floquart agreed, and Ziari smiled to himself in the dark. “I’ll tell you what. You go pass by the corner of Loaf and Steel, find the house with the white door on the east side of the intersection, and see if you hear any screaming. And don’t tell anyone I sent you. And come back and tell me if she’s all right.”

“I can do that,” said Ziari.

Floquart let him out of the castle.

-~-

Ziari did keep his promise to Floquart (whose wife seemed to be sleeping quietly), before setting off again through the dark streets toward Cobbler’s Lane. He was halfway there when the night watch finally stopped him.

A man stepped into view from around a corner and stood solidly as though to block Ziari’s path.

“What are you doing out at this hour?” someone asked—someone behind Ziari. Ziari turned and saw yet another man.

He was surrounded—the fire—they were going to hang him—he couldn’t escape—

He took a deep breath and let it out very slowly, reminding himself that it would be all right if he died; it would be no great loss to anyone, him least of all. “Obviously,” Ziari drawled, “I’m up to no good, breaking curfew just to prove how despicable I am. Maybe I was planning to sneak into your homes while you’re out and rape your wives.”

“I don’t believe that,” said the watchman. His voice seemed familiar, and it was barely possible to make out his overall proportions in the dark; Ziari thought for a moment and recognized him. Colinet, who sold spices and sometimes tailed Ziari when Ziari was out in the city just going about his business. “I don’t believe you’re gratuitously evil.”

Ziari was being accused of lying by a man already suspicious of him; what would happen if he was interrogated? Would he need to make up a compelling story while being tortured? Would Varille be angry if he found out what Ziari had done? Of course he would; Ziari was in the wrong, very clearly, or he wouldn’t be under arrest and about to be executed.

He glanced behind him—the other watchman hadn’t moved—and then looked right back to Colinet. What now? He was going to die—that was fine. That was _fine_ and he _shouldn’t_ feel afraid when that was what was best for every person who had ever lived—his life was the worst thing that had ever happened, worse than the fading of the elves, worse than the burning of the forests of old, worse than every disease and every disaster, worse than every crime ever committed, all of which were Ziari’s own fault, all of which had been done by his own hand. He was the lynx, the murderer; he was Ziari, who had once shoved a girl off a cliff; he had created death itself and was responsible for all the suffering everywhere; he was the reason all was lost.

“For what it’s worth,” said Colinet, “I followed you before and I saw what you did for Floquart.”

“Why didn’t you arrest me as soon as you saw me where I wasn’t supposed to be?” Ziari asked, as though one answer mattered at all when all was lost.

“You weren’t doing anything wrong,” said Colinet. “I thought it was nice of you to reassure him.”

Colinet must have him mistaken for someone else, or maybe he was lying. All was lost. Colinet was going to kill him. No, that was fine. That was fine. That was wonderful and good and perfect. Colinet was going to kill him. All Ziari had to do was not fight back. Or maybe he should fight back, so it would be even more perfect and over even sooner.

Ziari lowered his hood to feel the chill wintry air and let the cold sink into him. Above him, the stars gleamed, eternal and beautiful, something which, he reminded himself, he hadn’t ruined and would never touch. He breathed deeply and shivered, feeling small and helpless and knowing that he was about to be defeated. The evil in him would soon be wiped out forever. The world would go on then, afterward. Ziari wouldn’t get to see it, but that was all right.

“So how about we just walk you back to the castle?” said Colinet.

“No, not there!” Ziari exclaimed, his beautiful fantasy shattering. “Not the castle, not him.” Varille shouldn’t be the one to do it. He wanted to be killed by anyone but Varille right now. If this had happened a month ago, he would have been content to be taken to Varille to be executed at Varille’s command, but not now. Not anymore. Not him. Anyone else.

Well, not anyone—no one from Liat—but Colinet would serve just perfectly.

“Hm,” Colinet said thoughtfully. “Where were you going?”

“Does it matter? No one invited me anywhere.” Best not to take anyone down with him. He wondered what had happened to Thevot.

“It matters,” said Colinet. “Tell me. Please.”

“I thought Lop might be willing to let me stay the night. Maybe. Why does that matter?”

“Because if you won’t go back to the castle, I need to know where to take you. You can’t be out at this hour. So, which Lop? The cobbler or the baker?”

“Cobbler.”

“Perfect. I know where he lives. We’ll take you there—come on.”

The two watchmen did make good on their word and go with him peaceably through the city. Ziari, deeply confused, began to realize that he wasn’t being killed. That didn’t make much sense and for a moment his mind refused to accept the idea—it was such obvious nonsense—but he had to admit that the evidence was fairly conclusive.

“Why are you helping me?” he asked Colinet just before they turned the last corner.

“Because what you do is horrible and if you want to go away and do something else somewhere else for someone else, I’m not going to stop you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a scribe!”

“Ha. Yes. I know, you’re a scribe, you definitely support yourself working less than half the time as a scribe. All those long nights you’re in the king’s bed, you’re _sleeping_ , and somehow they say you still take naps in the daytime. Uh-huh. Anyway, if you want to do something else, I would never stand in your way. You want to give up this… lifestyle of yours… then I’m all for it. And you can stop tempting His Grace, too.”

Ziari was unwanted because he was a toxic, corrupting influence everywhere he went. No one wanted him around. He was poison.

“…Thanks for your help,” he said dryly.

“You’re welcome. Now, come on, let’s get you to your friend. And don’t go wandering again until morning, all right?”

“Of course,” said Ziari, who had no intention of being within the city walls when the sun came up.

-~-

While Ziari was out that night, Varille examined the note still further. He was fairly certain the parchment had been used before and had the top scoured off to allow for reuse. So the person who sent this hadn’t bought it especially for this purpose. What had it been before? It was about the right size to be a leaf cut out of an average-sized girdle book. That didn’t guarantee that it _was_ , but it _might_ be, and if that were the case, it could be traced back to… well, theoretically, it could be matched to the book it was from. In fact, there were, quite possibly, thousands of books in the country. And it might be from Liat or East Liat or Viela. Even, perhaps, a very clever and very well-hidden advance party of northern pirates. To search “only” all of Serinne’s books, or “only” every book in the great library of Malito, would be prohibitively difficult. Even restricting it to only books of the right size would be almost as bad.

Well, what else? The criminal was someone who had at some point had access to at least one book. But to have the ability to carry out something like this suggested resources already. The criminal was probably someone willing to destroy at least one book. Well, there were a lot of those. The criminal had either actually made a mistake that strongly suggested he spoke Liaten, hired a scribe who made such a mistake, or been familiar enough with people from Liat to know what would sound plausible. But not familiar enough with the king’s scribes to know who wouldn’t make such a mistake.

Or, of course, maybe it was that very scribe himself—the forgery was excellent, if it was a forgery—and the mistake was an intentional attempt to confuse Varille about the origin of the note, so he wouldn’t go to war, not knowing whom to go to war against. If that was the case, it followed that someone involved thought very highly of Varille’s attention to detail and ability to keep his head in a crisis. Very, very highly. Maybe implausibly highly. He would ask Ziari about his reputation in Liat, whenever Ziari got back.

On which topic, he probably ought to mention to Ziari that he spent far, far too much time contemplating his priorities, what sacrifice was worth what, and such things, and that his easy answer was not easy because the question was easy, but because he had spent hours on it already, alone at night with only his books and his macabre hypotheticals for company. That might comfort Ziari, though, really, if he couldn’t handle the answer, he shouldn’t have asked the question.

But then, that was all assuming a deeper understanding of Ziari than Varille could say with certainty that he had. It might be better to ask questions rather than make assumptions.

Regardless, that was a problem to deal with _after_ saving his only heir.

All right, then. Varille came to a decision. Time to go look through old court records.

-~-

Lop often woke for a while in the middle of the night, or so he said, and indeed he was awake when Ziari arrived, a lot calmer now that everything made sense and he wasn’t in immediate danger. The people of Solanne universally wanted him to leave and stop ruining everything, but they were decent people, not consumed by blind hatred, so they chose to help him leave rather than chase him off. He might be the worst person ever to live, but he hadn’t ruined everything, just because not everything was ruined. Not everything was bad at all.

“Do you mind if I go over the wall?” Ziari asked Lop once the door was shut and the watch gone. Lop’s house was right up against the city wall on the northwest side of the river, which was the side where the city was built right up to the walls; elsewhere, Solanne’s orchard and vegetable garden provided a buffer between the wall and the city proper.

“You’re leaving?” Lop asked. “Do you want a rope or something? It’s a long drop.”

Ziari had just been planning to break both ankles and heal himself, but a rope would be so much less painful. “Thank you. Please. Yes.”

“Do you know where you’re going? Do you have someplace you can stay after you leave?”

Ziari shrugged. “I’ll be fine.”

“I have friends outside Solanne, if you need help…”

“Thank you, but no,” said Ziari. Lop had given no sign of knowing that Ziari knew that Lop was in contact with thieves, but Ziari did know. Lop sold things for them sometimes, when he could excuse having them, and he helped them disguise themselves and get in and out of the city secretly.

On the other hand, his lack of surprise at Ziari’s request might mean he did know Ziari knew.

“Well, if you’re sure…”

“I am.”

“But I know my friend would want to meet you,” said Lop. “If you ever wanted to meet him. You know what kind of company I keep?”

“I didn’t want to accuse you of anything,” Ziari said as though hesitant, “but I did get the impression you maybe knew some people who didn’t always follow every law…”

“That’s an understatement,” said Lop, “but it’s true enough. I know some people who’d love someone like you—you’re curious, you keep to yourself, you get around in secret somehow…”

“I don’t want to—well, I guess I don’t have anything more to ruin, or I wouldn’t be leaving. But I’m more of a coward than you know and I don’t have many skills besides writing and sucking dick. And sneaking around, but I couldn’t go around committing crimes. I wouldn’t be able to think of anything but what would happen if I got caught.”

“Don’t be too mad at me for this but I don’t believe you don’t have other skills. And I don’t believe you when you say you’re just a free commoner. You look downright elven—now that could be for any reason; you could be a bastard—but how many bastards get a first-rate education? You’re literate. You… were not born to work, that’s all I can tell, but I’m sure of it. And I think I know why you left your family, too. You’re free, in more ways than just not being a serf. You don’t care about anyone’s birth—you judge people on their own merits. You never use titles for anyone. You won’t be commanded just because the one doing the commanding has more elven ancestors than you. And you don’t lord it over people for not having any elven blood, either. My friends are the same way. You don’t have to be alone. You don’t have to be the only one.”

Ziari smiled wanly. “Nice of you to tell me how you figured it out. You could’ve kept your own counsel.”

“I like to think of you as a friend. Not a close friend, maybe, but a friend.”

Ziari considered his options. He hadn’t meant to go infiltrating the bandits, but given that they were right there recruiting him, he could figure out if they had Iselle, then either free her or, if they didn’t have her, slip away and abandon mankind.

Even if he did free Iselle, afterward, he could go where he belonged, live as a wild thing—maybe a bird of prey, with flight his consolation for eternal solitude. Sometimes, maybe, if he wanted to, he could fly over Solanne and see that Varille was happy. On reflection, Varille wasn’t doing anything wrong by not loving Ziari. Ziari couldn’t demand anything from him. He simply had to decide whether or not to offer a little more help for nothing in return.

“I… would like to meet your friends,” Ziari answered.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's not a typo.

_Smoke, carry our prayer_  
_Carry our praise to him_  
_The lord of flame and change_  
_Carry our need and pleas to him_  
_The god of blood and guidance_

_Candle, burn, and please our god_  
_Our great and fearsome god_  
_From whom come passion and song_  
_From whom comes the future_

—Smoke, Carry Our Prayer, hymn to Lani, translated from the Litan

Lop gave Ziari directions to a meeting-place in the eastern part of the Northwood and instructions to arrive alone. Ziari made his way carefully northwest, avoiding people, avoiding notice, and wrapping himself in the warm wool cloak Lina had stolen for him. Near the Northwood, there were unusually few ordinary commoners to avoid, even for this time of year, and unusually many armed warriors. Unusually many wasn’t that many, really—only about three—and yet, they were tense and everyone _else_ was hiding either indoors or in a village square. The lands were… Ziari struggled to remember his name. Someone who held the rank of serjeant, which was about equal to knight, but granted for non-military service. Except that serjeants could be knighted and knights could pay a fee instead of going to war. It was all so much simpler in Liat and less of a headache, so clearly the headache and complexity had to be good somehow.

Eventually, Ziari came to a place near the edge of the woods, the place Lop had described. There was a crabapple tree and a small clearing around it; the clearing was mostly surrounded by birch trees.

It was the second evening since he left Solanne, and it was shaping up to be a cold night. The sun was already down and the sky was darkening, and Ziari’s breath was starting to cloud.

After a while, the two people Ziari had noticed lurking hidden in the woods stepped out of hiding, as did a third that he hadn’t noticed. One had a bow and three arrows in hand, ready to draw; the other two had spears. They all looked well-attired and clean, for outlaws living in the woods. Maybe too much so.

“Well, hello, there,” said the archer. “And what brings you here?”

“A friend sent me,” Ziari said with a shrug.

“What friend?” asked the archer.

“I’m sure you know her,” said Ziari.

“Name her anyway,” said the archer, and either the bandits had more than one friend or something was wrong.

“I’m sure you know your own friends’ names.” Ziari smiled. It was almost a polite smile. Almost.

The archer sighed. “Well, it was worth a try. You’ll tell us later, back at the castle.”

Ziari’s sudden panic was so intense he felt it as physical pain before he noticed that he was afraid. He glanced around for possible routes of egress, but didn’t know the lay of the land very well beyond the path he’d followed to get here. The mostly-birch areas of the forest were also mostly open, with dense ground cover taking advantage of all the light, but that was terrible given that there was an archer and he would be shot and he couldn’t get away and all was lost and Ziari noticed belatedly that he’d already taken off running. Not that it mattered. None of this was real. All was lost. Nothing was lost. Everything was fine. He was dreaming, that was all. He often had nightmares. All was lost. He was dreaming. It was fine.

His left foot suddenly couldn’t bear his weight; he tripped and fell into the soft ferns and mud. It didn’t hurt, probably because it wasn’t real, nothing was real, all was lost. He got to his knees—there was no one behind him, there was no one, it was fine, really, just fine—and felt the arrowhead shift against the shattered bone in his left ankle. He reached back and yanked it out. Blood. Very nice blood. All was lost. He was about to be put down like the monster he was.

He took a deep breath and reminded himself that death was an acceptable outcome. It was fine if they killed him. It might hurt a little before he died, but everything was fine. Really. Totally fine.

In some distant memory of someone else’s life, the two spearmen grabbed someone by the arms—some monster gasping and staring at the forest floor—and hauled him to his feet. He couldn’t quite walk, but they half-carried him. Ziari watched it happen with vague and distant curiosity. That wasn’t his life. He wasn’t real. This wasn’t real. He wondered what would happen to the captured monster.

He calmed down a bit, his heart slowed down, and the pain in his ankle cut through the fog between him and the world.

This was, he realized, completely real.

Ziari went cold all over.

“I assume,” he said, in his best imitation of the aristocratic accent used at court in Solanne, “that as soon as we reach the castle, you’ll provide me with what I need to write a letter to my friend Varille.”

The archer snorted.

“You might have heard of him,” said Ziari. “He’s rather an important person in this country.”

“Oh, let me guess, he’s named after the king,” said the archer.

Ziari laughed. It was neither a genuine laugh nor a good facsimile of his usual laugh. It was instead harsh, haughty and cold. “Guess again,” he said, in such a tone that he didn’t need to add _you worthless vermin fit only to be crushed beneath my heel_.

“Whatever. I don’t care if you’re friends with the king, all his council, and the Bride of Liven.”

“You will care when my friend finds out how you treated me.” Ziari carefully did not say that this was because Varille would do anything. He almost certainly would not; Ziari, after all, was no better than a wild animal.

“Nah.”

Ziari considered what he had with him and what skills and knowledge he had that were more common among the half-elven. Most commoners didn’t carry as much wealth on them while traveling as Ziari did; his bracelet alone was worth many days’ wages. Then, too, he could sound out Litan and even speak it a little. “Do you speak Litan?” he asked in Litan.

For a moment there was no answer. “No,” the archer said in Litan, stumbling a little over the word as though he weren’t quite sure of it.

“Well,” said Ziari, switching back to Serinnaise, “I do. And would you like any further proof of who I am? That is, if you’re too blind to look at my face and see I’m no human.” The differences were subtle enough Ziari doubted it was truly possible to tell anymore. Maybe back in the days when the half-elven where truly half-elven, not one-sixty-fourth-elven.

“That’s nice,” said the archer. “You could be Rika herself and you’d still be under arrest on suspicion of conspiracy to commit treason, murder and theft.”

Ziari had, many times, failed to convince people he had whatever legitimate business he had. He had, many times, been perceived—correctly—as a commoner and even as a vagrant. But this was starting to seem like something else. Surely the archer didn’t mean that. Was it just that he didn’t expect to ever be called on it, so he felt free to make insane claims like this, that he would arrest people without regard for their elven blood? Speaking Litan should have at least given him pause, though it wasn’t proof at all. It was absolutely possible to pick up Litan and an aristocratic accent without being elven, but to ignore Ziari’s offer of other proof after that was odd. Unless Varille had sent word ahead for some reason clarifying that Ziari was not under his protection, they should be at least mildly concerned that they might be accruing the wrath of someone powerful.

The thing that should happen was an easy, or at least easier, captivity, with food and drink every day and no torture, while Lord Sabinian made at least a cursory attempt to verify that Ziari was indeed a vagrant with no standing or rights before he did anything seriously harmful. And then some form of death, but maybe not. And, importantly, they would address him courteously until they were sure he wasn’t anyone important.

Varille, of course, would not claim Ziari; the only protection he could give was that of guest right when Ziari was physically located within his walls. Anything else would mean taking responsibility for Ziari’s actions—which was to say, being Ziari’s master. So even if Lord Sabinian wrote to him, that wouldn’t save Ziari.

Somehow, though, Ziari was starting to doubt that he would have even that small delay.

Well, the first thing he needed to do, if he was going to be tortured, was to shapeshift a bit. They might want him naked and if that was the case, he couldn’t afford to have anything seem amiss.

He had tried, of course, just being normal. And that fit well enough except that sometimes—at random as far as he could tell—he would suddenly remember he had a dick and have to struggle to keep himself from retching. He hadn’t actually vomited just from noticing his dick more than, oh, two or three times, but hiding away and breathing deeply and pointing his face in the general direction of something easy to clean was an unpleasant waste of time no matter what.

He had tried having nothing… fun; he supposed sex was objectively fun even if he generally had to exercise every bit of self-control he had, carefully trying to look overwhelmed with pleasure rather than anguish, hiding away inside somewhere far away from the nightmare. Even if he generally felt dead inside afterward and had to fight to make his face smile and keep himself from flinching as he touched his partner, nonetheless, he was aware that it was fun. He had certainly been told enough times that even a much less intelligent person than Ziari could figure that out. And yet, nonetheless, he had tried having nothing fun at all. That fit worse in some ways and better in others; it was a huge relief to feel as though there was no part of his body that belonged to other people and could be turned against him without warning, but then he just spent all his time imagining being caught at it. He couldn’t even envision the reaction he would get for something so unthinkable. He just knew it would be horrible and all would be lost, and he spent hours on end thinking about it, unable to focus on anything else.

He’d gone farther afield and tried shaping his penis like a duck’s just in case that helped. Then instead of wanting to vomit he just shuddered convulsively as though he’d tasted something very bitter, every single time he thought about it. So that didn’t work, either.

So between the legs he was usually female; that was awful to think about and felt all wrong and he had to go away inside any time he had to pee, but at least it was a steady, quiet, predictable wrongness, not sudden unbearable horror. He had an excuse if anyone saw—surely most shapeshifters would try, just once, just to see what it was like. Well, “most” of a group that might consist only of two people, if Lelinne had ever even existed. Or if he wanted to hide his gift, well, people pretending to be the other sex were hardly unknown, and no worse than vagrants. At the very least, he could begin to imagine what kind of reaction this would get if he were caught, and sure, it would be bad, but…

But if he expected to be stripped naked by people intent on hurting him any way possible, well, that changed things.

Luckily, he was injured already, so it wasn’t a problem if he couldn’t hide the pain of shapeshifting. If anything, it was probably a good thing convince them he was weaker than he really was, to convince them a mere arrow wound to one ankle could make him pant and wince. Later, when he was tortured, that would matter.

There was one more mercy, and that was that he was fine when he was done shifting. It wouldn’t last; he knew that too well. But for a moment he just felt relief at everything in his body being suddenly right for the first time in years.

Then they came to the castle.

Limeknee Keep was built on the Hallowed Coast, on a cliff jutting out into the bay. The water served as a moat on about one and a half sides of the castle. All around the keep a high, thick wall rose sheer and forbidding, broken here and there by bastions and making a little innie-belly-button sort of pouch that ended at the gatehouse. Something that might be a mural by daylight had been painted all around the walls, forming, in the dim dusk light, only ominous indistinct shapes.

Both portcullises were down, but at the archer’s command, both were raised.

Ziari looked up as they passed through the gatehouse, but it was too dark to see if there were any holes in the ceiling. Inside the walls, there was only one bailey; there was the keep right ahead of them, no further gates in the way. Two men spoke in hushed and urgent voices nearby, but broke off and both turned to see who had just come in.

“We caught this one trying to join the outlaws, sir,” said the archer. “Talks fancy, speaks Litan, says he knows the king.”

The taller of the two men came over to them and peered as closely as he could at Ziari in the after-sunset twilight. “You’re that, ah, scribe, aren’t you?” he said, in a tone that made it clear he didn’t think Ziari actually made a living as a scribe. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about your friends. The friends you visit when you’re tired of our king’s… charms.” He used a sardonic tone for that last word that suggested that he didn’t think Varille was charming. But more importantly, why did he want to know where some whore went when he wasn’t servicing the king? Other clients? Blackmail material?

“I make friends everywhere I roam,” Ziari said vaguely. “I’m a very friendly sort of person.”

“Your favorite friends,” said the man who was probably Sabinian, the local lord. At least, Ziari was almost sure that was the name of the lord of this place. “I’m given to understand that people like you love gossip.”

“Scribes? No, most scribes are nuns or priests; they’re not allowed. But really, do you think people who like gossip are interested in spending all day silently reading and copying old books?”

There was a pause as Sabinian conspicuously failed to show any amusement at all. Then he finally answered. “I have friends I like to gossip with. Sometimes we do each other favors or keep each other’s secrets. I wonder if we have friends in common. Maybe you’d like to tell me about your friends. Do they care for almonds?”

“My friends are very private people,” said Ziari. “I don’t know that they would like it if I told you what sort of foods they eat.”

“Of course. Well, that was a nice chat.” Then, not to Ziari, and in a more businesslike tone, he added: “Thanks for bringing him in. Take him to the dungeon and tell Maussart I want to meet with him immediately.”

So they dragged Ziari into the keep, and through the keep—Ziari paid careful attention to the floor plan inside—up a tall tower, past a dark cell that stank like a tannery and seemed to maybe contain a person or something person-sized, to an empty cell that was not on the highest floor of the tower. As Ziari’s eyes adjusted to the deepening darkness, he saw that the barred door was open, a ring with several keys hanging from the one key sticking out of the lock. Light came only from the very small window up near the roof—and there wasn’t much of it at that hour, wouldn’t have been even from a window ten times that size. The archer stepped aside and let the others force Ziari in. They let go of him and he put a little weight on his injured ankle and immediately fell to his knees with a gasp. That was partly deliberate—he could have carefully balanced on one leg and lowered himself gently, and he certainly could have hidden his reaction to such minor and totally expected pain.

Someone grabbed his hair and someone, maybe the same person, held the point of a spear to the side of Ziari’s neck. The archer ordered him to stay still and Ziari did. The archer crouched down, unfastened Ziari’s cloak and threw it over one arm. Ziari wondered if he should decide now on whom to become when they unbound his soul, which of course they would; his bracelet was valuable in its own right, even aside from what it meant to him. They took his belt first, with his purse hanging from it, and then the archer patted him down, all along his chest and back and down the outsides of his legs and back up the insides and—

Ziari gasped and found himself shaking all over.

“Oh, don’t be so precious about it,” the archer muttered, and grabbed hard and twisted.

That made it better. It made it worse in some ways, but better on balance, for reasons Ziari could not begin to understand but that probably proved there was something fundamentally wrong with him.

Well, they shouldn’t get to see that. Ziari whimpered and shuddered so hard the spear pricked him—but it didn’t bite deep, unfortunately. He might have been better off if it had.

The archer went for his bracelet then. It should have been a huge and life-changing moment. It should have felt like something. He had managed, with his ally, to keep his bracelet even when he left Laurens. And now the archer simply unfastened it and it was gone.

Ziari thought he might weep if he were any less upset, but as it was, he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything but numb shock flavored with what might become horror if it were able to bloom. He recited things silently to himself, unmoving, unresisting.

_Altri loves charity and unearned kindness._

The archer took his shoes. Ziari barely felt it. They were someone else’s anyway.

_Devoted work and purity are Liven’s favorites._

There were footsteps; the archer and one of the others seemed to be leaving the cell.

_Taverie asks us for order and law._

The spearman threatening Ziari left him alone. The door slammed loudly shut and someone turned the key.

_Lani commands us to face our mistakes._

Ziari eventually went and sat with his back against the wall to wait.

-~-

It wasn’t very long before the two spearmen came back with manacles; by then he’d gotten through the entire Litany of Godly Virtue and one verse of the Ballad of Lelinne the Shapeshifter. Ziari—was he even still Ziari?—wondered if he could just use his shapeshifting to die. Maybe create a gash in his throat. But then, if it came out that he was a shapeshifter, would even more people figure out that Ziari was a spy? And would it hurt Varille if they did?

Besides, what if he failed? What if it was too obvious what he was doing as he did it and they were somehow able to stop him? Maybe something internal. Stop having a heart, maybe? That would take a long time and too much concentration. He wouldn’t be able to finish if he fainted before the end.

There wasn’t even anything to look forward to if he escaped alive—if his body escaped alive, which was all he could really hope for.

He didn’t fight—tried not to even notice—as they cuffed his hands behind his back, chained his ankles together.

_Sit and listen, gentlemen,_  
_Until my song is sung._  
_I’ll tell you of a bold outlaw:_  
_They called him Lyn the Young._

They left him, but someone else stepped into the cell, carrying a lit candle. He had a knife at his belt and there seemed to be something else pointy half-hidden behind it.

For a while, the newcomer just stood there looking down at him. Serinne was the westernmost country in the world, maybe excepting or tied with Atiron. To Serinne’s east was Liat. East of Liat was East Liat…

“You,” the newcomer said after a while, “are going to tell me who you answer to. The only question is when and how much persuasion I’ll need to use.”

…And east of Ibentra was the Nilkot Empire, and then there was Kidan, not _immediately_ east of them but somewhere east of them. And Kidan was the furthest eastern country in the world.

“You can talk now and I won’t have to hurt you.”

South of Serinne was the Sea of Ouram. South of the sea was Atiron. East of Atiron was Viela.

“But if you’d rather tell me after you’re already maimed and crippled, that’s fine, too.”

Atiron and Viela used to be one country, the Empire of Ouram. Ouram conquered part of Liat and East Liat, too, from the Empire of Rema.

The torturer—possibly Maussart, based on who the lord who was probably Sabinian had said he needed to talk to—kicked him in the jaw. It wasn’t that bad.

Ziari supposed this would be unpleasant, but he’d been roughed up before, whipped and hit and insulted for a while. It wouldn’t be fun. It would leave him anxious for days after. He could bear it, though.

“You will tell me who you answer to.”

Ziari forced himself not to grin. He didn’t fear death, he couldn’t be maimed—or rather, it wouldn’t last if he was—and there was nothing Maussart or whoever this was could do to him. Though he really should memorize the name. Maussart. He might want to tell Varille about this if he survived—maybe leaving out who exactly it had happened to, but this conduct was worrisome. _Maybe_ it was just that clear that Varille wouldn’t protect him in any official capacity and _maybe_ Varille’s unofficial disapproval wouldn’t mean anything and _maybe_ they really cared about evenhanded justice even for the king’s personal friends but it seemed much more likely that they didn’t care about Varille’s goodwill because they weren’t particularly loyal. Maybe they were even particularly disloyal. Maussart was probably the torturer’s name. He had black hair. His face was visible in the candlelight, but whether Ziari would be able to tell him apart from someone else later was less certain; memory was very fallible.

Maussart-or-maybe-not set the candle down out of easy reach and touched Ziari lightly on the cheek. Ziari flinched and leaned away.

“Now, don’t do that. I won’t hurt you yet. I want to show you my spark.” Meaning gift; and moreover, meaning he’d picked up some of how the local commoners spoke, though he was also clearly trying to sound noble. He touched Ziari again and Ziari stayed still. “My name is Maussart. Just to humor me, how about you tell me what I just said my name is?”

“Why?”

“I swear on my life it’ll be obvious in a while and it won’t do you any lasting harm to go along with this.”

“You’re Maussart.”

“Tell me I’m someone else.”

“You’re And—” He gasped and shuddered. The pain that struck wasn’t like anything he’d felt before; the closest comparison was what it felt like to bang an elbow, but it wasn’t all that close. As long as he was expecting it, he could probably fight through it, and maybe even without giving away that he was in pain. If Maussart hurt him, then he would be in pain regardless and it would be even easier for truth and lies to look identical.

“Tell me who you work for. It won’t hurt if you don’t lie.”

And suddenly everything—the shackles, his body, the flickering candlelight, Maussart’s confidence—was all together not just wrong, but _entirely_ wrong, _nothing but_ wrong. He made an attempt to remind himself of things that mattered to Ziari besides hatred and bloodlust, but by the time he noticed the change it was too late for that to mean much to him. He wasn’t bound to be Ziari.

The lynx half-smirked, half-snarled at Maussart, and twisted so he could try to bite Maussart’s hand. Not fast enough.

Maussart shoved him hard enough that he fell back and hit his head on the floor, arms pinned beneath him. Maussart knelt on top of him and held him down by the throat one-handed. The lynx took a breath—Maussart wasn’t (yet) pressing hard enough to choke him—and watched for an opening.

“Tell me who you work for,” said Maussart.

The lynx smirked silently.

Maussart drew his knife. “Silence will hurt as much as lies.”

“I intend to kill you,” said the lynx. This was really more Ziari’s strength—all right, everything except killing people was more Ziari’s strength—but the lynx couldn’t become Ziari at will without the bracelet. He tried half-heartedly and nothing happened.

Maussart did not begin slowly with small wounds. Instead he put out the lynx’s left eye. “Tell me who you work for.”

“I hate you,” said the lynx. He wondered what Ziari would do. Get out of here somehow, probably. Or make sure Maussart ended up worse off than he started. He would be curious even about this, would be watching everything carefully… maybe that would help. Maybe there would be an opening to do something other than beat Maussart in a fight while shackled. “I’ll never help you.”

Maussart stabbed him in the chest, the knife turned the wrong way to slip past his ribs; instead Maussart dragged it down, scraping against the ribs, cutting all the way through muscle. He leaned forward and put more weight on his other arm, too. The lynx struggled to breathe.

Maussart leaned back. The lynx gasped for breath. Blood soaked his remaining clothing.

The lynx considered for a moment and then made one convulsive effort to sit up and unseat him. He failed, got another cut when Maussart flailed for a moment trying to regain his balance. And then they were both back where they started, the lynx pinned and helpless. He spat at Maussart.

Maussart blinded him.

Well, eyes were replaceable, for a shapeshifter. Not a big deal. Ziari would have cried out in feigned anguish for exactly that reason, lying about anything and everything just because he could. The lynx paused a moment thinking, decided he could still get away with it, and whimpered.

“You’ll like what happens if you tell me what I want to know a lot better than you’ll like what happens if you keep fighting.”

The important question wasn’t so much what Ziari would do but why he would do it. He would want to protect Varille—he was much too nice to let a friend suffer if he could help it and maybe he could do himself a favor and remember noticing that next time he was himself—but he would also lie just to lie and the lynx wouldn’t. The lynx would lie for a reason or not at all. Confusing Maussart about what could hurt him the worst was a good reason, but Ziari would have gone beyond that, would have given two dozen false confessions, every one different, would have had other things to deceive Maussart about that the lynx couldn’t even think of.

“Well? Tell me who you work for. It’s the only thing that won’t hurt.”

He needed more time to think. Maybe seeming too distracted by pain would work after all; he whimpered and moaned and said nothing. He should really be Ziari now; Ziari was born for this, crafted intentionally to be able to survive these kinds of situations, and Ziari would have known what to do without a moment’s pause.

Well, lacking Ziari, the next best thing was someone with nearly ten years of memories of how Ziari acted.

He took a couple of deep breaths and reminded himself of what was coming. “The Nilkots.”

That hurt.

“No, you don’t. I can tell when you lie.”

That was bad. That meant Ziari’s trick wouldn’t work, and the lynx couldn’t think of another. Worse, he couldn’t say anything at all—if he told Maussart, one by one, that he _didn’t_ answer to the Nilkots or Liat or Viela or Atiron or East Liat or Ibentra’s government-in-exile or… eventually, Maussart would learn something from that. And he wouldn’t give this poxy cancerous assriding lich any help at all.

Except.

“Fine. I’m working for Viela’s king. I talk to an intermediary—I can’t tell you his name—I was told to lie about it…” It hurt the whole time, but it was nothing like shapeshifting. Ziari made a habit of visibly reacting to minor pain like this, but that was optional, a choice he made, and the lynx was choosing differently. Ziari probably would have chosen differently in this circumstance, too, when pain would reveal something.

“That’s much better. Now say it again.”

“Why?”

“Well, if for some reason you don’t want to—if it hurts, say…”

Oh, so he didn’t know. He just called the lynx’s bluff. Ziari would pick that apart but what would he learn from it? And would it hurt Maussart more to believe the story about Viela or to know he was so useless? The lynx could barely think. Ziari would have lied and Ziari was the expert.

“I serve Viela’s king.”

Everything would be better if he were Ziari.

The bracelet wasn’t that far away. Ziari had survived having it in his purse before and stayed Ziari. The cat’s fang, the raven, the masks, the eye…

“Say it again.”

No, damn it, he needed more time—he whimpered, involuntarily for once—he needed more time, he needed more time—he needed the charms—the cat’s fang, the eye…

“Oh, so it does hurt?”

Damn. Might as well go with that. Ziari whimpered—this time intentionally, as something like agreement. Why did Maussart know he was lying about working for the Nilkots? Was he calling the lynx’s bluff or did he actually know? Was there some way he would expect to recognize one of their agents? A password?

Maybe they liked almonds.

The important thing was that he needed to remember that.

“Why don’t you tell me something that won’t hurt?”

He imagined a map of Serinne. The information he needed to remember needed to stay in some safe places on that map so he would know where to find it.

Maussart slowly, almost gently, caressed Ziari’s cheek with the point of his knife, ever more firmly, until it finally drew blood.

That didn’t matter, Ziari told himself. The map. The important information. Something for every region. Lisse could have the fact that he was in Limeknee. _Do you like almonds?_ was the first part of an exchange agents of the Nilkots used to recognize each other—that was a little too big; he put the question about almonds in the Elfland (he imagined an almond tree growing there, in fact, whispering the question when the wind stirred its branches), the fact that the Nilkots used such a thing in Perrau. Lady Merri was very cultured, she owned some books, he could imagine it written in one of them. Sabinian was a traitor, helping the Nilkots—that could go in Metrive, the march; it was fitting because news of a traitor belonged in the borderland between two countries. He—

“You really don’t want to know how else I can maim you if you don’t talk.”

He needed to kill Maussart of Limeknee; he hid that knowledge in Vessi Keep in the West, because it was said to be grim and imposing and terrible, a castle that called to mind battle and death rather than sieges and safety. Where better to hide a desire to kill? Sabinian’s men hid where Lop sent him, waiting—shame he couldn’t put that in Laurens in Perrau, but Perrau was full. He’d been betrayed once in Serinnaise Supran, technically held by the Palatine of Sarn. He put knowledge of the ambush in the Supran mountains which were technically in Sarn.

Hound Isle he held in reserve. He might learn about an escape route. If he didn’t, the rest of this wouldn’t be worth remembering, anyway.

Maussart stabbed him in the arm. Ziari winced and used his shapeshifting to give himself a little more blood, because he didn’t trust Maussart to keep him alive like this.

And where was he? Serinne—no, just mainland Serinne. Lisse: Limeknee. Elfland: do you like almonds? Perrau: the Nilkots’ agents recognized each other. Metrive: Sabinian is a traitor.

“Tell me who you really work for.”

West: want to kill Maussart. Sarn: Lop sent him into an ambush.

Hound Isle: empty for now.

Lisse: Limeknee. Elfland: do you like almonds?

“Tell me and the pain stops for a while.”

“Your… your mother.”

Maussart stabbed him.

“The madman of Fire Peak.” By now, Ziari was injured enough that he was fairly sure Maussart’s gift couldn’t make him look or sound any more pained than he would if he were being truthful.

“Say it again.”

“The madman of Fire Peak.”

“Again.”

“The m… I can’t…” That hurt, too. He could. He just chose not to. “I lied. I work for Rika the elf.”

“You’re wasting my time.”

“I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t want to do that. I can say that all day; it’s completely true.”

“Really.”

“I don’t want to waste your time. I’m sorry to waste your time. I don’t want to waste your time. I’m sorry to waste your time. I don’t want to waste your time. I’m sorry to waste your time. I don’t want to waste your time. I’m sorry to waste your time. I don’t want to waste your time. I’m sorry to waste your time. I don’t want to waste your—”

“Then stop doing it.”

Ziari hurt so much it didn’t take any effort at all not to smirk.

Elfland: do you like almonds? Perrau: how the Nilkots’ agents recognize each other.

Maussart kept asking and Ziari silently repeated his litany to himself and sometimes deigned to answer Maussart out loud with blatant lies.

“I work for the king—the true king—the one and only king—the Nilkots have no claim to his throne—I am loyal to my home—I come from Ibentra,” he said at one point.

“I work for an elf who came to me in a dream and spoke of three stones that glow like stars,” he said another time.

“I work for whoever pays me—I don’t have loyalties,” he said.

And all the while _tell me who you work for, tell me who you work for, tell me who you work for, tell me who you work for_ and his litany of the regions of Serinne every moment he could breathe and think at all, Lisse and the Elfland and Perrau and Metrive…

“I work for the king of Atiron,” he said, and “I work for myself” and “I work for the Garmen” and “I work for Liat, I serve Liat, body and soul from birth to death” and “I am _just a whore,_ , gods, believe me, I don’t spy, please, believe me, that’s all I can say, please, please, I have no other answer.”

Maussart took to hitting him and at one point rubbed some salt into the cut on his chest. There was so much pain it no longer felt like several discrete injuries. It no longer felt like pain even mattered—he couldn’t imagine a time without it, before this night or after it; he couldn’t imagine it, couldn’t want it, couldn’t care if it was taken away—pain was simply something that was. It was unimportant how it changed when he spoke or when he gave himself more blood or when Maussart hit him or cut him or otherwise touched him. He wasn’t even _really_ Ziari, not without his bracelet, none of this really mattered, only the litany, only the litany, only the litany. Lisse, Perrau, the Elfland, Metrive, Sarn, what was he forgetting? Sarn, the West. Yes. Lisse, Perrau, Elfland, Metrive, Sarn, West. On and on and on, the regions and their hidden facts, hidden for Ziari when he was real later, though later was a dream and this was another dream and nothing had ever been real.

Maussart demanded to know who he worked for.

Atiron and Viela, the Empire, no, not that empire, the other one, Serinne, Hound Isle separatists, Lyn the Young, Rika, was he repeating himself? Did it matter? He wanted some kind of relief but he couldn’t even imagine what that would feel like. Lisse, Perrau, Elfland, Metrive, Sarn, West, Hound Isle—what was Hound Isle? He couldn’t remember Hound Isle. He couldn’t remember what memory was hidden there. The others—Lisse, Elfland, Metrive, Sarn, Perrau, West—they were safe—he couldn’t remember Hound Isle—he couldn’t remember Hound Isle—Maussart demanded to know who he worked for—he couldn’t remember Hound Isle—Maussart demanded to know who he worked for—the pain was even worse—Lisse, the West, what other regions did Serinne have? He missed Serinne. He couldn’t remember the regions. All was lost. Hound Isle was lost. All was lost. Was Hound Isle all? All was lost. He couldn’t remember. He had to remember.

Maussart demanded to know who he worked for.

“I don’t remember.”

Maussart demanded to know who he worked for.

There was pain and nothing changed it and he couldn’t think of any reason to answer Maussart and the pain kept getting worse and worse and he gave himself more blood and the pain was worse and—

“…fucking faint on me! Answer me! Answer me now!”

There was a gap, he was aware of nothing and then this again, he wanted nothing, he wanted oblivion, he wanted to wake up from this bad dream, all was lost, all was lost, had to remember Lisse, Perrau, Lisse, Lisse, Lisse…

Maussart demanded to know who he worked for.

Lisse, Lisse, Lisse, there were others, Perrau and Hound Isle—he didn’t remember Hound Isle, why didn’t he? All was lost. It must be important and he didn’t remember it.

Maussart demanded to know who he worked for.

Maussart demanded to know who he worked for.

Maussart demanded to know who he worked for.

He answered again and again and some point it stopped hurting to speak, no matter what he said. Something about truth and lies, but he didn’t know the difference anymore. That might be important. All was lost. Lisse, Sarn, the West. Perrau? Yes, Perrau was one of the regions and he remembered what was hidden there.

He said anything and everything. “I’m a spy,” he said. “I’m a smith,” he said. “I’m an elf and I can fly,” he said. “I am Verula, evil soul.” “I am no one’s serf nor slave.” “I serve food.” “I answer only to Altri herself who sent me on this errand because I am to die here and save the world from facing me.”

Maussart ordered him to be serious. He had thought he was, or at least, he didn’t understand the difference between this and what Maussart wanted.

He remembered what was hidden in Lisse, Perrau, the West, Sarn, the Elfland, Metrive… he remembered Ziari… he remembered being Ziari, flying… all he wanted was to be good, all he had ever wanted was to be good, Ziari knew that, Ziari remembered that, remembered thinking it was possible, and Ziari didn’t care but this wasn’t Ziari and he didn’t know how to please Maussart. He could see again, see a giant winged spider descend on a thread of silk to devour his face—he could see it dissolve—he could see his own pain laid out all around him like a ruined stronghold, stones lying everywhere, nothing standing tall.

Maussart demanded to know who he worked for.

All the names were the same. He stayed silent and cried tearlessly. His tongue stuck to his dry cheeks.

Maussart demanded to know who he worked for.

“I can’t,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh? Why can’t you tell me?”

He stayed silent and gave no answer.

Maussart kept at him for a while. He didn’t know how long. Forever, actually. All was lost, all had never been; he had been born here in this dungeon; this wasn’t real; he had never been real, was only dreaming; as soon as he woke up, he would vanish. He would die. Yes. He recited the list to himself. It was hugely important that he remember what was hiding in every region of this country that wasn’t real, that he had only ever dreamed of—that he had started dreaming of this horrible night in Limeknee, that he had created unreal memories of in this sleep, in this dream. There was nothing in waking life. He would not be. When he woke, there would be nothing at all, only an abrupt and irreversible end. But it was hugely important that he carry with him into waking life that list of hidden things in the different parts of Serinne. The list would dissolve when he did. It would be gone. That didn’t matter. It was the most important thing. It was the only important thing.

There was no beginning or end. The horrible night with Maussart lasted eternity. There was in fact no such thing as time, only one long, endless moment of pain and sorrow and vague and imagined and probably insane false memories of something better that never was and never would be. He screamed in anguish and grief for the world he had never lived in, for Ziari who had never been, for Ziari who had gone away somewhere and left him to suffer, for Ziari who had wanted so much and would never get any of it because he wasn’t real and never had been.

At some point, Maussart sighed and got up, grabbed him by one arm, dragged him over to the cell wall, and propped him up, sitting with his back to the wall. Maussart fastened the chain at his wrists to the wall, so that his hands, behind his back, were about as high as the bottoms of his shoulderblades. The dreamer vaguely wondered if something would be different now. Well, he would see soon enough. Maybe he would wake up soon. Maybe he would sleep soon. He was so tired.

Maussart lifted the dreamer’s chin and fastened a traitor’s fork around his neck—a tight leather collar with a couple of long sharp forks attached to force him to hold his chin up or be impaled in two places at once. He remembered—not that it was real, but he remembered—a night with Varille, when he learned what a traitor’s fork was and how it worked. He had enjoyed that and never would again.

Maussart left him and he tried to figure out whether it was actually impossible to sleep like that or just very difficult.

-~-

He completely failed to discover that sleep was possible, which might have been because it wasn’t. He didn’t wake up and vanish as quickly as he wanted to. He saw almost-human dancers that were subtly wrong in some way he couldn’t quite notice but that, he knew, made them dangerous, made them harbingers of loss and pain. He wondered vaguely what truth was and concluded that it had never been or maybe that everything was truth and that truth was what was said when speech was done.

All was lost and all would be lost soon enough when he awoke. He went over his litany of places again, giving up on Hound Isle. Then he tried to recall the moment when he chose Hound Isle as a hiding place, but everything was an indistinct blur of pain and that particular moment was lost. Had maybe never even happened. Or had it happened, because dreams were real? Or were dreams less real than waking? Or more?

All was lost. He didn’t even understand the meaning of that anymore; he only knew the words by their sounds.

 _Why are you so stupid and useless?_ a voice asked. The dreamer had no idea whose voice it might be. _Mine. I’m no one. Just a voice._

Oh, so he was insane. Well, that was reasonable, given the circumstances.

_You are stupidly, helplessly looking like an idiot while you just sit here doing nothing. Why aren’t you doing anything?_

The dreamer went over his litany again. Very important to get that litany through to waking up intact. If it was wrong when it ended, that would be bad somehow. He started teasing apart different flavors of pain again, picking favorites.

_You are in a cell in Limeknee. You need to get out of this cell somehow. You will die here if you don’t._

Death was fine. Death would not be a bad thing.

_It’s bad when you need to survive to share your information._

No, no, he only needed to die. He only needed to wake up and vanish, never having been at all. Everything was fine.

_Do you remember being Varille’s pet and wanting to do everything he said?_

That wasn’t real.

_You killed him, you know. You strangled him with your bare hands, grinning like a monster. Then you fucked his corpse in the ass. Do you remember that?_

He could imagine that. Sure. Varille had never been. Even if Varille were real, he was gone. Fine.

Not fine, not really. It hurt… not like being stabbed. It hurt like something sicker and messier and duller, something that just sat there quietly warping and poisoning everything. It wasn’t remotely fair that there wasn’t someone like Varille in the world. But that was fine, because there was no world. He was too thirsty to cry.

_Make yourself some more blood. You could maybe make spit, too. Might make you more comfortable._

But there wasn’t any such thing as comfort and if there were, the dreamer couldn’t achieve it. This wasn’t that kind of dream.

_If doing what I say makes you feel better, will you keep doing it?_

That sounded like effort.

But he tried a little shapeshifting. At least this pain was familiar and under his control.

He did, in fact, feel much better afterward.

_See? I think you’re still dry. Can you… just make water appear in your mouth, maybe?_

Not exactly, but he could make dry body parts into less dry versions.

When he was done with that, he didn’t have a headache.

_So the rest is harder. I don’t want Maussart to know what your gift is. That makes visible wounds a little harder to fix._

The best fix would be death.

_It would and will be. But you need to carry that litany a while longer. If you let it go now, it won’t reach the place it needs to be._

But he would just die here. And then nothing would matter.

_The litany is the most important thing in the world. The litany is the only thing that matters. All… all else is lost. All else. But the litany is the only thing that still matters. Carrying it to its destination is what Varille would have wanted._

Probably a lie. Maybe a lie. Well, the voice had been truthful so far…

And when had he remembered what that meant, anyway? He still couldn’t say what was true or false outside this cell, outside this night, but he could understand what was true within it. The voice told him he would feel better if he weren’t thirsty, and that he could use his shapeshifting for that, and he did, and he felt better. So what the voice said was true. So far. All right, then.

It was disconcerting to have it answering his thoughts—he’d rather a normal conversation—but then again, he didn’t know if they might be overheard. So maybe that was for the best.

Who was this person?

_I think you need to risk eyes. Eyes that can see in the dark._

What if someone caught him and learned about his gift? What if he needed to put himself back how he was now and forgot something? And what about the answer to his question? Who was this?

_If you stay, the litany won’t make it where it needs to go. You’ll never be able to bring Varille back to life. Do you remember you killed him for no reason at all? You just decided you might as well. You’d never even fought with him before._

But there was another problem with having eyes. Right now he knew that nothing he saw was real. He was pretty much just ignoring the bloodied corpse of a cat that, though dead, occasionally twitched and opened its gleaming eyes. If he also saw real things, then how would he tell?

_No idea. Worth the risk. Do it._

He tried just one. It hurt. It hurt and he had to be delicate and get all the details right. Yes, he knew how—the other part of his gift was a detailed knowledge of anatomy that was half innate and half learned simply by thinking about it for a while. But he still had to get everything the right shape, heal the damaged nerve at the back, carefully restore detailed central vision…

It was dark. Still?

_This is still the same night. It’s around midnight now, maybe a little after. You went insane very quickly because you’re weak and unstable and useless. No one has ever wanted you around because you have nothing to offer anyone._

Yes, that rang true. And all was lost.

He recited the litany to himself again.

_Good job. Yes. You’re keeping it safe. That’s exactly right._

What, really?

_Yes._

But that would mean he had done something right.

_You have. You are. That’s good._

But he’d never done that before. Never that anyone would acknowledge.

_You did this one thing completely right. You still are. For you, for the whole world, for me—it’s a good thing to do and you’re doing it well._

But Hound Isle—

_Hound Isle is empty. Don’t you remember that? It’s your own fucking list. You idiot. How can you forget something so fucking obvious?_

No, that didn’t make sense, he would divide the information up first and then match it to a list that had the right number of things. You’d have to be stupid to do it any other way.

_Everyone is stupid while being tortured. That is how pain works. The list is the wrong length, you idiot. You utter idiot. I can’t believe you’re allowed to be alive. Stop burning hedgehogs. Do what I tell you and you’ll be out of here and you can deliver your litany to the right people and then die. Dying comes last._

Maybe.

No. No, he had gotten help from the voice so far, but he would only keep obeying if it told him what it was and where it came from.

_Dalire sent me._

Dalire hated him and he hated her personally. Most gods he hated only on principle, but he had actually served Dalire, hurting himself even beyond his ability to bear it, giving her everything he could possibly give, and she had never repaid him.

_She did repay you. Haven’t you noticed? Think about how you calm down._

Mostly by either reciting dry facts to himself or biting himself. But he didn’t bite for her; it wasn’t an offering. It was to help himself.

_That pain isn’t your gift to her. It’s her gift to you._

He couldn’t, for a moment, focus on the voice or the need to escape or the fact that he was insane. Every single time he had ever hidden himself, all alone with only pain for comfort…

Every single time…

Bad stretches where he’d had to bite himself twice a day every day for months, good weeks where he didn’t once need to…

And every time, it was a gift. Every time, it was a gift from someone trying to help him.

_Now get back to work. Look at that cat. It’s your fault the cat is dead and ugly and suffering. Get out of here with your litany._

But Dalire was actually helping him? He wasn’t alone?

_I did just say that. You idiot. You utter idiot. You utter idiot. How do you get your hands free?_

Oh, that was simple. Painful, but what in the world wasn’t? He shrank his hands and pulled them free of the shackles, then enlarged them again. His arms hurt when he straightened them out. He sighed.

_And you want to know if the cat is real? Because I can give you the answer if you’re too stupid to figure it out. You idiot. You utter idiot._

Sure, why not?

_The cat is lying down. You’re looking at the ceiling. Do cats lie on the ceiling?_

Huh. No, they didn’t. Good point. Thanks, voice.

_And it’s your fault the cat isn’t real. That poor cat. You idiot. You utter idiot. He would be fine without you. He’s not even real because of you. It’s all your fault. You utter idiot._

That made his skin crawl. He was the destroyer of reality itself. He made the cat a hallucination rather than a real cat. That was a terrible thing to do. Maybe he should go away so no one had to be around someone so unpredictably dangerous.

_The litany is even more important. The danger will be worth it. That’s a risk we just have to take. It’s risky. Risk is part of life. Always minimize risk. Never be afraid to take a risk. The risk is small. That’s a big risk you’re taking._

He healed all the muscle damage and closed a couple of wounds, then unfastened the traitor’s fork and carefully unwedged it. Might be useful at some point. Might as well steal it. Feet next. He temporarily didn’t have heels, slipped his feet out, reshaped them, then grew back the skin Maussart had flayed off the soles and toes.

_You idiot. You utter idiot._

Did he need shackles for anything? Might as well keep them. He fastened the traitor’s fork to them and awkwardly, stiffly stood. Everything ached. The cuts he hadn’t healed yet broke up the all-over ache with a few spots of stinging pain standing out like stars in a black sky.

The stars mattered. He remembered that… vaguely. Stars were good, or something more complicated than that, but that was a while ago.

_The stars are the reason you haven’t destroyed the world yet. Pick the lock._

He changed one of his fingers into something flat and hard and the right size, unlocked the cell door and carefully opened it. Then he started down the stairs.

_You utter idiot. You utter idiot. You utter idiot._

He turned around and went up the stairs instead. No point in making the voice angry; it had been very nice and helpful so far.

In the uppermost cell was someone standing, wrists chained to the ceiling, but it was too dark to make out who that person was exactly.

He changed his eye a bit so he could see more clearly in the dark. The person was a woman, maybe a little taller than average, long-haired, currently naked. He picked the lock to her cell and went in, leaving the door open behind him.

“You awake?” he asked. She didn’t say anything and her head lolled forward, but she definitely seemed to be standing up, not hanging from the ceiling.

Something gleamed near her feet; he looked and saw the dead cat with its wide bright eyes staring at him. It wasn’t real before because it was on the ceiling; now it was on the floor, so now it was real.

He unlocked her shackles; her arms fell to her sides and she stumbled backward and raised her head.

“Any reason you wouldn’t want to leave?”

“You have a way out?” she asked. Her voice was familiar from somewhere. He silently wondered if the voice would tell him where he knew her from. It didn’t. Maybe from Varille’s court—she spoke with a flawless elvish accent.

 _You utter idiot,_ said the voice.

“No, but I’ll find one,” he told the noblewoman. He didn’t know how to fix things with the voice but he was pretty sure he’d made it angry.

_If I get angry at you, I’ll tell you. You utter idiot._

“I have healing powers,” she said, “if you want your eye back first…”

Healing powers like the princess?

Oh.

“I didn’t recognize you,” he said. “Sorry. Yes. Please.”

She reached out and touched his face and healed his eye.

“If you didn’t know it was me, why were you here to save me?”

“You were hurting and I don’t like Maussart.” Saying ‘and a voice I think only I can hear told me to come up here and of course I do what the voice says’ seemed very unlikely to go over well.

_You utter idiot._

“Well, we might as well get out of here or hide. At some point someone will check on us if we wait too long.”

“Can we get up to the roof and out that way?”

“I doubt it—seems more likely we’d end up stuck there.”

“Then we can only go down.”

So down they went.

 _Did you know she’s planning to kill you?_ the voice asked. _Be careful or you won’t be able to carry the litany far enough._

Well, of course she was planning that. Everyone wanted him dead. No one had ever liked him or wanted him around.

_And what’s my lady, then? No one?_

He’d forgotten. That and he didn’t believe it. It just didn’t make sense. No one had ever liked him before, so why should Dalire?

_Someone did. She didn’t just suddenly start liking you today. You suffer so beautifully. A lifetime of gifts would still leave her in your debt. And men may not repay your gifts, but my lady will._

Well, helping him seem calm around people was something. It had stopped working well enough to keep himself about when he visited Verula.

_You never made any other requests. You never made any requests at all. You utter idiot._

They came to the door to a cell where Ziari had seen a man being slowly pressed, presumably to death. The smell of human waste was even stronger there than in the rest of the dungeon. He stopped there.

“Is there someone we need to save in there?” Iselle whispered.

Counting on the low light to help hide him, and arranging his body so it would be hard to see exactly what he was doing from inside or outside the cell, he picked the lock.

With good night vision, he could see the man inside had each limb chained to a different corner of the cell. A flat platter had been set atop his chest, and on that had been set a couple of stacks of weights.

Ziari took a breath, noticed that he was himself, and noticed that he was filled with cold, quiet, calm fury. He would get this man out. Then he would kill Maussart. Then he would kill Sabinian. He felt no frenzied need to hit anything, simply a sudden clarity of purpose. He supposed he might even win some praise for it, from Iselle and maybe from this man if he was still alive, but that wasn’t the reason he would do it.

 _You utter idiot,_ said the voice.

Ziari ignored him and went to start unlocking the other prisoner’s chains. Iselle, meanwhile, walked past him and started lifting the weights one by one and setting them gently on the floor.

He was definitely breathing.

Iselle got everything off him and then ran her hands down each of his arms from fingertip to shoulder. Then she laid one hand on his chest for a while.

“So you’re the healing princess,” he said, sounding painfully hoarse. “D’you _have_ to touch or can you not?”

“I have to touch the specific body part I’m healing, for injuries. Anywhere, for certain illnesses.”

“Lani’s ugly orange cock,” he muttered.

She dealt with his feet and legs next before she answered that. “You should get up and… clean off a little.”

“With what.”

Iselle looked around.

Ziari took off his tunic and handed it over. “Part of it isn’t bloody.”

 _You utter idiot,_ said the voice. Ziari sighed and considered how best to get the voice to stop reading his thoughts.

_Then how are you supposed to talk to me?_

Out loud was certainly a possibility, albeit one likely to make everyone else think he was insane.

_What if they do?_

Then he would need to leave and live alone in a forest somewhere as a bird, bereft of all contact with mankind.

_What if you were insane to begin with? What if nothing you’ve ever thought has ever made any sense and you aren’t even sane enough to notice?_

Possible. Not likely. Something similar was fairly likely—he’d never had much luck figuring out what behavior bothered other people and what didn’t—but in other ways, the world was too consistent and predictable for him to have _no_ understanding of it.

The stranger stood very stiffly and looked determinedly at the ceiling while Iselle finished healing him.

Ziari heard footsteps and turned to see someone coming up the stairs.

“Be quiet or people’ll hear you,” the man on the stairs whispered. “You’re lucky it’s me. Know why?”

“Because you’d love to help us, if only we’ll help you?” Ziari guessed. That would be good luck—or maybe not; maybe he’d been sent, or…

“Yeah, that. I want you three to take the blame for killing someone. Reckon you’ll agree soon’s I tell you who.”

…He could have been sent by Dalire, since Dalire was sending people, and Dalire liked pain so he was trying to hurt them, which meant Dalire was against them, which meant the voice, also from Dalire, was untrustworthy. In fact, it made perfect sense that Dalire would love Maussart and all his allies.

“See, a friend of mine was a little too loyal to the king—d’you know the serjeant’s a traitor? You do now.”

_He hasn’t sacrificed like you. She always loved your sacrifices._

So then Dalire would want him and Maussart to work together, because she liked them both.

“And this friend suffered for it.”

_She doesn’t love Maussart. Theft is not sacrifice._

“The serjeant had Maussart make an example out of him.”

He couldn’t trust the voice because the voice was working for Dalire, who loved Maussart.

_You utter idiot._

“And I want revenge. For my friend. Help me kill Maussart.”

_Yes, please do that. The man needs killing. So does Sabinian._

“I won’t slam this door. You can tie me up and give me a black eye and brag about knocking me out so fast I didn’t have time to scream. I’ll tell you where to find Maussart and give you my knife—we’ll just say you stole it—and pretend I’m out of it long enough to give you a head start.”

Not good enough—they still didn’t have a way out. With or without his head start, they would end up fighting over the portcullis winches. Three of them. Armed with one knife. Against all of Sabinian’s garrison—quite possibly five or ten men, all armed, all better trained than Ziari.

“Sure,” said the man they’d saved from being crushed. “We’ll do that.”

-~-

They ended up gagging the guard and leaving him locked in Iselle’s cell. Ziari took his knife, paused a moment, and decided to take his cloak, too.

“I can get us out after, long’s we don’t wake anyone,” the other prisoner said as the three of them set off down the stairs again. “Meet at the base of this tower—or don’t leave it, if there’s one of us wants to go find him alone.”

“I do,” said Ziari.

“Then you meet the two of us on the ground floor of this tower when you’re done. Scream if they catch you. Kill that lich dead.”

For some reason, it didn’t bother Ziari much to be told to—and not knowing the reason wasn’t acceptable; he would normally hate anyone who presumed to tell him what to do, at least for a while. Maybe the man’s gift was some kind of mind control—maybe he could make people approve of his orders and want to follow them.

_Did you want to kill Maussart before he told you?_

Did he?

_What secrets hide in Serinne?_

He went through the regions until he got to the West. As dangerous as Vessi Keep was said to be, as deeply and immediately reminiscent of war and struggle and torment—yes, he had wanted to kill Maussart. Unless this man had changed the litany or somehow reached back through time to give him the idea in the past…

Ziari left them to sneak into the hall. According to the guard, Maussart would be sleeping on the near end, near the door by which Ziari would enter, because he was considerate enough not to try to walk over people when he went to sleep late.

When he got to the hall, Ziari realized he couldn’t recognize Maussart in the dark. He ruled out anyone not within some vague distance from the door—decided, mostly arbitrarily, to restrict his search to the nearest five—then ruled out two more, one for being a very buxom woman, one for being much too short. That left three. Ziari might have been able to recognize him in better light, but then again, he was already using better night vision than most people had and it wasn’t good enough. He hadn’t really seen Maussart in good lighting to begin with and given that his memory seemed to have choked on and failed to swallow most of the night so far, even if they’d met in broad daylight and again at noon, Ziari wasn’t convinced he would be able to tell.

The dead cat stalked in the door past him, possibly alive again and possibly just ignoring its own death, and settled beside one of the men. It looked from Ziari to the sleeping man and back again.

It would be convenient to have help from an animal that could recognize Maussart, but he had no idea whether the cat was friendly, knew who he was looking for, could tell humans apart, or had chosen to indicate who it was rather than who it wasn’t.

So he cut the throats of the three candidates and met up with Iselle and the strange man.

 _I don’t know why you keep doing such bloodless cruelty in your sleep,_ the voice said.

Ziari really needed to make figuring out whether the voice was real his second priority, right after escaping.

The man led them down into the undercroft, where it was too dark to see at all. It would take far too long for Ziari to turn into a bat, even if he did want to risk them seeing, so he didn’t.

“I heard about a way out,” the man whispered. “Be quiet and wait.” Whatever he did, he was very quiet about it, and it was dark, and Ziari didn’t know anything about the undercroft except that it smelled of mildew and stale air. Then, finally: “Found it. Come on.”

Ziari walked very carefully and slowly, testing each step before committing to it. He reached out very slowly and felt a barrel of something, then another barrel, then suddenly nothing. He kept walking until his bare toe touched the stranger’s foot.

“Come on, there’s a tunnel.”

Ziari followed and trusted that Iselle could find them. Indeed there was a tunnel, a narrow one. Ziari didn’t have to stoop, but if he’d been another two inches taller, he would’ve. After not too long, the stranger started panting; Ziari was still all right and Iselle sounded fine. The voice ranted about how hedgehogs were not meant to be on fire and how they would be different if they were meant to burn.

They came to a place that was still dark, but lighter. The air smelled fresher—it smelled of the sea, and faintly of trees. The sound of waves was also louder here than inside the castle. The tunnel seemed to make a sharp turn and end in faint light; the stranger stopped just short of that. 

_Might be danger,_ said the voice. _Just because he got you out of Limeknee doesn’t mean he’s not an enemy._

“Okay, here we are, see it’s brighter here? Just a little further and we’re at the end of the tunnel. It’s a little hard to see from the water and just about impossible from up on top, but we’re partway down the cliff. Can you two dive and can you swim? Shouldn’t be too far but if you can’t swim at all then you’re dead.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Iselle.

“I can’t swim at all,” said Ziari. Maybe if he turned into a fish, then somehow flopped out of the tunnel before suffocating in the air…

The stranger sighed. “What you do when you get down to the water is you go limp. Don’t move. Don’t get tense. Just relax. Lie on your back like you’re trying to go to sleep on the water. Pretend you trust the ocean not to hurt you. Of course it might hurt you anyway, might even kill you, but it’ll kill you for sure if you don’t trust it.”

“Wow,” said Ziari, “I’m going to have such an easy time relaxing, thinking about how very safe I’ll be.”

“Like I said. Pretend. Now, diving. Ever seen someone dive?”

“Once or twice.”

So the stranger talked about piercing water like a spear, hands coming to a point in front, breathing to keep the water out.

And then there was nothing for it but for the three of them to dive. Iselle offered to take charge of Ziari’s souvenirs and he let her, supposing they wouldn’t do him any good in the water anyway—he’d need to clean and oil them to keep them after they’d been in salt water, but that was something to worry about later.

Ziari hit the water hands first, but belly second. There was a loud splash and the impact stung more than water should. He sank a bit as his momentum carried him down; then he floated slowly back up, exhaling steadily. He shivered once before he got himself under control and went limp; the water was shockingly cold, though nowhere close to freezing. He didn’t know how to get onto his back without moving in some way that would make him sink and die, but if he didn’t do anything, he would also die. For a moment, he knew he wasn’t long for the world, and it was a peaceful thing to realize. Sad in some ways, but peaceful.

Then he felt the stranger’s hands on him and he was rolled helplessly onto his back. He drew a breath and opened his eyes and saw the crescent moon gleaming in the night sky, changeable but never permanently vanquished.

The stranger dragged Ziari away from the cliff, then paused to call back up to Iselle that they were out of her way. She jumped and made a much smaller splash than Ziari.

The stranger dragged Ziari toward shore through the wintry water, Ziari watching the sky with enforced and half-feigned calm the whole time. He saw a dragon pass under the moon and blot out its light before moving on to where it would feast on the people of Solanne. He had the certain knowledge, gleaned from no particular source, that Varille would burn to death, silently refusing to scream, succeeding at that, although by the end he would start sobbing. He had the certain knowledge that Morelet would stand atop the roof to see the dragon and know in that moment that it was all Ziari’s fault, and he would jump rather than give Ziari the satisfaction of murdering him even by proxy.

That was very odd, because Varille was dead already, Ziari had killed him, and those things didn’t seem to go together… and yet they were both true.

They got to the beach and Ziari had other things to worry about then. The stranger was shivering constantly and very badly, so as soon as the three of them were out of the water, they stood for a while in a three-way embrace, skin against skin, all of them trying to warm up. The wind picked up a bit and chilled Ziari’s wet skin, but after a while, the others, cold and wet when he first touched them, started to feel warmer. Ziari’s possibly imaginary friend called him an utter idiot a few times.

They parted when no one was shivering and their skin felt warm where it had been pressed against others. Immediately the cold air started chilling them again as they set off walking, following the stranger, who insisted he knew of a few places they could go.

They entered the forest and followed a path that wasn’t the one Lop had told Ziari to take. Damp fallen leaves carpeted parts of the forest floor, while other places were mossy or grassy. Here and there were what were probably ferns—it was a little hard to tell in the dark—and the trees came mostly in patches of one sort or another. A lot of them were birch, and beneath birches they could look up and see the stars sometimes. They walked northwest, a little uphill, and stopped for another long, warm hug before walking the rest of the way.

For a long while, the stranger was obviously pushing himself, clutching at his side and panting and pushing on through sheer force of will. When he finally stopped, Ziari wasn’t sure at first whether they’d gotten where they were going, or if he was just too tired to continue.

Then the stranger picked up a small part of the forest floor and set it aside. “Hole’s big enough for all of us,” he said. “I’ll fix the roof when we’re in.”

And that was where the three of them slept, beneath a disguised roof and a wet cloak, all curled up together.

-~-

Ziari woke mostly because he wasn’t comfortable curled up in the tight ball in which he’d spent the past couple of hours, and partly because some sleeping person planted a hand on his face and shoved, probably by accident. He hadn’t woken up touching anyone in a long time—had they seen anything? He was naked—they must have seen—no, because he’d changed yesterday, he had…

Ziari didn’t know whether he’d rather kill himself or cut off his dick and offer it as a sacrifice to Dalire or just scream and scream and scream and _scream_ —

Regardless, he managed to freeze and wait, silent, until he could breathe again. Then he poked at the roof and figured out how to get out and tried not to wake anyone else.

He was drier but still damp, and away from the sheltered windless hole with two other warm bodies, he shivered. Still worth it to be alone. It wasn’t morning yet, but it was starting to lighten up a bit. It looked like the twenty-seventh hour or so; this time of year, that was probably the wren, but could’ve been anything from the blackbird to the mouse; Ziari had never made a habit of knowing the changing correspondences. In fact, he’d never really used the secular hours much.

On thinking about it, he only vaguely remembered the previous day. He’d gone into the forest… an archer who understood just a little Litan, enough to be impressed by Ziari’s bluff, but how did he meet the archer? …Limeknee, as seen from right outside the front gates… hallucinating, eyeless, a cat on the ceiling, evil dancers, traitor’s fork digging into his chin and chest… tell me who you work for, but who asked him to say? …a tunnel, a dark storeroom… Maussart was his name, he had a painful gift and dark hair and it was important that he die… he did die, Ziari cut his throat… Ziari remembered cutting his throat three different ways, careful to keep the spraying blood from splashing and startling anyone awake, but always at different angles… being the lynx… the archer taking his bracelet and his self and sanity with it… hiding secrets all over mainland Serinne, but not Hound Isle…

Then escaping with Iselle and this stranger into the forest, dangerously cold…

And then waking up, still exhausted, still in pain. He knew—it would be very difficult to remember that much and not know—he had been tortured and gone insane. What didn’t know was what he had done to provoke them—just be himself, evil and worthless? Had he succeeded in joining the bandits and been punished for it? He wondered if any of the secrets he’d hidden for himself would answer any of those questions.

Lisse, he was almost certainly in Ven’s territory right now, though not the actual peninsula. The secret here was that he was in Limeknee. Had been in Limeknee. Not a shock.

Bordering Lisse was the Elfland. There stood an almond tree there, near Solanne, and the wind rustling its leaves asked him if he liked almonds. He didn’t have to go through the rest of the regions to remember the context. The first part of an exchange of passwords used by spies working for the Nilkots to identify each other. Must have learned it from a traitor in Limeknee.

The Elfland bordered Metrive and Perrau. Metrive—Sabinian himself was the traitor. In a book somewhere in Perrau—at least in the version of Perrau in his mind—he had written how the Nilkots’ spies identified one another at need.

Perrau bordered Sarn. Lurking, hiding in the Supran mountains in the south of Sarn was the knowledge that Lop had sent him into an ambush.

Wait. Lop had sent Ziari into an ambush, but if Ziari then ended up in Limeknee, it was a good bet he hadn’t been ambushed _by bandits_. That might be worth keeping in mind. He wasn’t sure how best to use it, but it probably had a use.

Before he could finish the list, he caught sight of a cat that might at some point have been dead, and was certainly evil, stalking toward the hole where Iselle and the stranger were hiding. The lich cat settled itself atop the roof of their shelter and, without needing to move, commenced draining the life out of them.

Ziari opened up the roof a little, kneeling in the cold, damp leaves, and warned them. “Wake up, there’s a cat,” he said. “Wake up. It’s a dangerous cat. You need to move.”

The stranger stiffened immediately and sat up. Iselle stretched a bit.

“A cat?” she asked, yawning.

Ziari got away from the hole as the stranger climbed out. The stranger, once out, looked all around, then turned to Ziari. He said something, or tried to say something, but all he managed was an indistinct, almost inaudible rasp that sounded like it might possibly have been a question.

“The cat. Right there.” Ziari pointed. The stranger looked at the cat, then looked back at Ziari, frowning. “I know it just looks like a cat, but it’s eating your soul. You need to get away.”

The stranger looked at the cat again, then, sighing, rubbed his temples.

Iselle climbed out of the hole, wearing the cloak and carrying Ziari’s souvenirs. “Where’s the cat?” she asked, looking around.

“It’s right there,” Ziari said, pointing at it. “Get away from it before it destroys you. Please.”

“I don’t see a cat,” she said.

Ziari simply refused to panic. They knew he was insane and he would never again be trusted to report accurately on very important things to which he was the sole available witness. That wouldn’t have been a fatal loss for anyone else, but he was a spy—had been a spy, was now incapable of the degree of accuracy required—and now he had nothing to offer anyone and would need to live alone as a wild animal. But he refused to feel anything about that right now; it was in the far future, or might not happen at all if he just killed himself first.

“Never mind, then,” he said. “I’m just seeing things.”

The stranger had turned away from them and now seemed to be wandering off. The cat looked uncertainly from him to the princess, wondering which to devour first. Maybe if Ziari could convince them to stop traveling together, it would only be able to devour one of them.

The stranger disappeared behind a tree for easily guessable reasons; when he reappeared, he gestured for them to follow him and set off purposefully as though he knew the woods well and had a specific destination in mind. Iselle followed, and Ziari thought for a while and decided he might as well see what was going to happen and be there to protect Iselle if anything happened. He had no idea how to get her home without just walking past Limeknee, which seemed like a terrible idea.

 _You utter idiot,_ said the voice. _What an idiot. You utter idiot. You should be able to think of something else._

Oh, all right, then. They could swim past Limeknee. Or start walking in the opposite direction—the world was supposedly spherical. Just walk to the other coast and…

…And not into the ocean. Down and around the peninsula to the port and then wait till spring and get on a ship when the ports were open, and from there to Solanne.

In fact, the ports weren’t even completely closed—the palatine of Lisse could order a ship sent to Solanne and it would go. Might not be wise to risk Iselle’s life on a winter sea, but a letter, news of her safety…

They walked through a denser part of the forest, dark and full of gnarled close-together trees, no birch in sight. Admittedly, they could only see a few feet in any direction, but still.

They came to a small clearing—much lighter under the gray dawn sky—where someone had clearly been weeding and fertilizing a little garden. There was some kind of fruit tree and a blackberry bush. The cat curled up happily by the tree, waiting for its meal to come to it.

“Hands up and don’t move,” a voice said. Ziari wondered whether it was a real voice or not; the stranger obeyed, though, so apparently it was real.

Ziari turned and crossed his arms. The speaker seemed to be a very tall archer, taller than the king of Liat, easily the tallest man Ziari had ever seen. He had three arrows in one hand and a bow in the other and was poised to draw and shoot if he saw fit.

“Tiny,” said the stranger traveling with Ziari and Iselle. “Don’t shoot. Please.”

“Reckon you’d say that even if they were the serjeant’s, seeing’s they have you outnumbered.” It wasn’t quite light enough to make out every nuance of the archer’s expression. He seemed to be glaring, maybe. Ziari wasn’t sure.

“You’re not one of Sabinian’s men,” said Iselle. “On what authority do you presume to detain us?”

Ziari tensed, but the archer visibly relaxed.

“…Thought _you_ were his,” said the archer. “But if you’re who I’m guessing then you’re not, and Robin’s not—who’s this one?”

“Ziari is a scribe who lives in Solanne and sometimes travels,” said Iselle.

“Oh! You three are just who I wanted to find.” It was hard to tell, it being dark, but he seemed to scowl. “Robin, what did you tell me to tell Nightjar last time we talked?”

“I said tell him to take a partner or two and watch the trap. Called her him that time, for sure. And told you to tell Left and Right to scout the north.”

The archer finally stopped menacing them, strode decisively past Ziari, and hugged Robin tightly. There was a rustling up in a tree, and when Ziari looked for the source, he saw someone he hadn’t noticed before drop down to the ground and land in a crouch.

The formerly hidden person was maybe Varille’s height, tall but shorter than the archer—and more leanly built than the archer, too—and seemed graceful. He straightened up and leaned against the tree he’d just come down from.

“And here I am, watching the trap,” he said. Or she, if she was Nightjar and she was a woman. Her figure wasn’t that revealing, her voice was ambiguous, her height suggested male if human but female if half-elven, and most importantly, if Robin had called her by the wrong pronoun, it was likely she was in some way unusually easy to mistake for a man, or that he’d known her as a man, or that he was confused for some reason. “And what do I catch but you?”

“Morning,” said Robin. There was the soft sound of his footsteps; Ziari turned to see him pick a piece of fruit bite into it. It was crisp, whatever it was.

“And is that lady with you the princess? Are we trusting her with any of our other places?” asked Nightjar.

“She heals,” said Robin. “Stilla’d know, too.”

“She’s alive?” asked Iselle. “I thought they must have killed her after all.”

“No, she got away and got lucky,” said the archer. “She’s been with us.”

“The gods are good! I thought they were both killed for me.”

“Far’s I know only your bodyguard died,” said the archer, “but you can go on feeling bad about him if you want.”

“So,” said Robin. “Take us to Stilla, then we’ll figure out how to get the two of them home.”

-~-

They stayed long enough to break their fasts on crisp wild pears, sweet with juice that sang of the screams of a thousand dying elves beneath the trees, then followed the archer, who turned out to be called Tiny, deeper into the forest. Into and down a stream, out of the stream, around in a couple of small loops, back to the stream, up the stream—Ziari eventually started shivering, having his bare feet in the frigid water the whole time, at which point Iselle decided they could share the cloak and lean against one another—past a portal to an afterlife where Ziari could see the souls of the wicked being drawn and quartered, past a huge and gnarled oak tree, and to a completely unremarkable spot where the canopy was sparse enough that they could look up and see the morning sky lit by the rising sun. The cat stayed with them all the while, and Ziari was aware that, since the cat was his hallucination, if he would just stop hallucinating it would stop devouring other people’s souls, and that therefore his madness was proof of his callous selfishness and that anyone who found out the details of it would understand that it would be morally right to kill him. Morally obligatory, even. If they wouldn’t, though, then he would still need to do something about the cat.

 _You utter idiot,_ the voice said a few times, but declined to elaborate.

They stood in an unremarkable part of the forest at the foot of a hill, near some birches that showed no obvious signs of anyone doing anything in particular to them—despite birch bark being edible if necessary—and a few dense thickets of stinging nettles.

Tiny walked over to the nettles at the base of the hill. “The snow gleams in the sunlight,” he said.

“And the bird flies to the moon,” a voice answered. The nettles rustled and someone appeared, apparently from beneath the hill, carefully presenting only his hooded cloak to the leaves. When he was clear of them, he put his hood down and faced everyone. When he caught sight of Robin, he grinned delightedly. “What’s happening?”

“We found Robin and the princess and that scribe that’s pretending to be human in Solanne,” said Tiny. “Alain’s by himself at the trap—Robin, you want us back there?”

“Who’s here now?”

“Me,” said the man who’d appeared from the nettles, “and Jay and Elena watching the princess’s maid.”

“I want Tiny and Jay with Alain,” said Robin. “The rest of need clothes for everyone and then we’ll figure out an escort to take the princess to… hm. Iselle, you ever met Ven?”

“More than once. Most recently two years ago. I think he would recognize me.”

“We send her and Stilla there—long’s Stilla wants to go, anyway—with an escort. Whoever goes should ask to stay the night, eat food, get a head start—Ven has some sense, I reckon he’ll agree—leave her with him and he can write the king, tell him she’s safe. Might take the chance to send him our own message.”

“You might want to negotiate terms for a truce,” said Ziari. “It’s not impossible he’d be willing to give you all amnesty if you stopped interfering with trade—especially with you saving his daughter.”

“And what, go live under other lords now we’ve tasted freedom? Or stay here and not steal anything and starve?”

“Maybe you could live here and do something someone would be willing to pay you for. Like keeping other bandits out. Or you could ask for payment for helping him with Sabinian, enough to live on for a while…”

“I might.”

“Iselle, do you trust them?” Ziari asked.

“I don’t have a choice; we can’t overpower them. For what it’s worth, I’ll be slightly surprised if this time ends in any way other than my being ransomed and returned home.”

“In that case,” said Ziari, “unless anyone’s planning to hold me prisoner, I’ll just leave now.” The cat needed to be lured somehow away from the others and Ziari was more than willing to sacrifice himself to it.

 _The litany you memorized still needs to get where it’s going,_ said the voice.

No, it didn’t. Ziari was insane. Anything he thought he knew was deeply suspect. There was no point in reciting an unverifiable litany of important-if-true ideas that might have been made up out of whole cloth.

“I won’t stop you,” said Robin, “but I’d rather you stayed with me a while. We have food and clothes and people you might like to meet.”

Ziari thanked him politely and then decided to test whether he was in fact telling the truth about letting him go.

-~-

Wandering, shivering, through the slowly brightening woods, Ziari kept an eye on the cat, which seemed to be following him away from the others, until they were far enough away that the cat seemed not to be devouring anyone at the moment; even the single outlaw who probably thought he was following them undetected was far enough away to be out of the cat’s range. It stared at him with its dead glowing pupilless eyes, unblinking, unbreathing. Ziari crouched down and held out a hand. The cat didn’t come to sniff him or pet his hand, but kept watching. Ziari blinked, deliberately, to make it less terrifying to the cat to be watched.

“Kitty,” said Ziari, somewhat inanely. “I…” Ziari almost said he didn’t have any food to offer the cat, but on second thought, he did. “Want to eat _my_ soul instead? If you don’t eat anybody else’s, I promise not to get mad or try to stop you. I don’t mind.”

The cat held still and watched him.

Ziari wasn’t sure whether the cat could understand his words or not. He kept his tone level, slightly chirpy but mostly just calm. “If you tell me what you want I might be able to give it to you. I don’t want you suffering just for being a lich, kitty, you probably didn’t choose it but even if you did… I still want to offer you some kind of chance. To be friends. And not foes. I don’t have a fence that can fend you off if I have to keep you away from the others. It would be… bad… if I did. Even if you deserved it. If I reserved it. If I could do it any time, any rhyme…” Ziari shook his head, trying to figure out how to put it. “You wouldn’t be a good kitty if I could fence you in because fences are for bad dogs. So I can’t fence you in, so I won’t fence you in, so you won’t even have to be afraid of it, so then you can be a good kitty. Right?”

 _The cat doesn’t talk,_ said the voice, _but it won’t devour any souls as long as you’re kind to it._

“First of all, what does it mean to be kind to an undead soul-devouring hallucinatory cat?” asked Ziari. “And second, how do you know that?”

The voice didn’t answer, but the cat stopped watching Ziari. It made a show of looking away and then wandered a short distance away.

Ziari moved only a foot or so closer to the cat. “Oh, what a cute kitty you are,” he said, turning away a little and looking at it obliquely. “What a cute kitty. What a cute kitty. Anyway, Voice, any chance you’ll stop spying on my thoughts?”

_If you’re sure you’d rather they hear you talking to ‘yourself’._

“‘They’?”

_If you go back, the cat won’t devour anyone but you. As long as you’re kind to it. I think it’s more likely than not that Robin won’t hurt you. He wants you for something—has since before he met you. I think he’ll help you to pay you back for saving him and so you’ll be able to do what he wants. I don’t know what happens if you stay with him and then refuse._

“Huh. Hey, kitty, want to stay with me? I don’t know how to be nice to you but I want to. You’re such a cute and terrifying kitty.” He stood. “Hey, whoever is spying on me, I know you’re there, I changed my mind, want to help me find Robin and the others?”

Sure enough, the man who had appeared from the nettles came out of hiding. “They’re probably not too far from where we left them yet,” he said with a half-shrug. “Come on.”

-~-

When they caught up with Robin and Iselle—and Stilla and Nightjar and Elena—they hadn’t gotten too far away from their little nettle-hidden hole. Robin was leaning on Nightjar and wearing Nightjar’s cloak—Iselle still had the stolen one from Limeknee—and Stilla and Iselle kept glancing at each other and walking very close together. Elena seemed to be the one most focused on their surroundings; she looked around like a hunted animal and walked like a dancer and her expression, visible now in the dawn light, was warier and grimmer than might have been expected knowing she’d just gotten back someone she knew and might have cared about and probably thought was lost. The cat quietly didn’t react to any of them and lurked nearby.

They were welcomed back—Robin and Iselle in particular looked delighted to see Ziari—and Nightjar explained where they were headed in terms that might have been code and appeared to make some sense to the guy who’d been watching Ziari.

Ziari was thinking he really ought to ask the man’s name when he noticed him frowning at Robin.

“Hey, want a cloak?” the man asked.

“I—” Ziari thought for just a moment of what he would most like to cover up. Then before he knew what he was doing, he was clawing at his face, vaguely aware that was the wrong body part, thinking only _get it off get it off get it off get it off_.

 _You should recite something,_ said the voice. _Maybe the Litany of Godly Virtue._

He couldn’t focus on that, couldn’t think at all beyond searing unspeakable horror—get it off—someone might see—no no no no no no—there was something damp on his face, maybe tears, maybe blood—

“Do you. Uh. Hate cloaks? A lot?”

They could see, they would know he was evil beyond belief and—the consequences were literally unthinkable—and _something_ and that something would be bad and he didn’t know how bad or what it would be or if he could bear it—no, he did, he knew he couldn’t—

_You utter idiot, why did you set yourself up for this?_

Make it stop, make it go away, no no no no—

“Ziari? Do you need something?”

No, no, no, he didn’t need things, he didn’t deserve things, he wasn’t stupid enough to ask for things he didn’t deserve, then they would know he felt no guilt, the important thing was to feign guilt, the _really_ important thing was to _feel_ guilt but feigning that he should feign it, though he fain would feel it and in the feeling know it—

 _You’ll regret it if you don’t calm down! People can see you,_ the voice insisted.

And having failed to feel and feigned to know there was no fixing what he had done and who he was, which were one and the same—was there a difference, being and doing?—he could only offer himself up as sacrifice, as appeasement to the angry gods on high, the angry gods here—forgiveness was forever beyond him and the knowledge could never be reclaimed once it had spread and spread it had—

 _Hey, that’s new,_ said the voice. _And you need to shift. Now._

No, that wasn’t what he needed. What he needed to do, he understood with a sudden clarity of purpose, was cut it off, then stab himself in the heart and abandon his body to become an unquiet spirit. He stopped clawing at himself and stared at his bloody fingertips. It was light enough to see the red beneath his nails and smeared over his fingerprints.

_Why is that a good idea?_

“Why are you so stupid?” Ziari asked the voice.

“Just thought you looked cold!”

“Not you. The tumor-riddled bastard that broke his promise to stop reading my mind!”

“Oh.”

_You just didn’t seem likely to survive if I didn’t._

“I don’t care about that as much as I care about you leaving my thoughts alone.”

_I didn’t realize it was that strong a preference—last night you were fine with it, weren’t you? To avoid getting caught?_

“Might’ve been. That would’ve been worse.”

“So, should I just wait for you to finish, or do you want to be warm while you talk to the voices in your head?”

“Oh. Thanks, yes, I’d rather be warm.” And then he needed a knife. The man handed him his cloak and Ziari put it on and pulled it shut in front. “Can I borrow your knife?”

“Why?”

“To cut things.” Because being seen to have any problem whatsoever with—well, it would be _bad_ , but finitely bad and only for him, not the unmitigated disaster for Varille that it would be if Ziari shapeshifted in front of these people. So given that he absolutely needed to immediately get rid of—no, no, he wasn’t going to think about it, wasn’t real, wasn’t him, he was somewhere else, this was a dream, this was a story, this was someone else’s life, someone else’s body—

“To cut what?”

_What happens if you tell him? Remember they already know you’re insane, they’ve heard you talk to me and the cat. You don’t have anything left to lose. And if that fails, just dissolve that big artery that goes straight from your heart, you’ll be dead before you hit the ground._

Worth a try. “I have too many body parts,” Ziari said, feigning calm, carefully keeping his breathing steady.

“You’d be better off using your spark, then,” said Robin. He, like all the others except Elena, was watching Ziari, looking perplexed.

“What?”

“Maybe they only call them gifts in Solanne. Trust me, a knife’ll hurt just as bad and there’ll be bleeding and the wound might rot.”

“What makes you think you know anything about my gift?”

“My spark’s seeing other people’s,” said Robin. “Saw it the first time we met. Makes it hard for people to disguise themselves around me.”

“Oh.”

“Looks too painful to use much but it won’t be worse’n cutting anything off.”

Nightjar’s expression stood out even among the other frowns and concerned looks. Nightjar gave the appearance of having some idea what was happening. “Why now?”

“Why is _that_ your question?”

“Well, I have some body parts I’d change if I could, but I’ve never gone from fine to suddenly trying to claw anything off in the middle of a conversation. Why now?”

“He reminded me. Oh, by the way,” said Ziari to the guy who’d offered him the cloak, “I don’t remember if you told me your name…?”

“Finch.”

Nightjar frowned thoughtfully in silence for a while, then nodded. “And I’m guessing it’s something important or you’d’ve gotten rid of it sooner if it’s that bad. Can you… do things? At all? You didn’t look like you’d clawed yourself up before but if that was just the princess and you keep doing that…”

Nightjar had realized that Ziari was incapable of being useful and was now, Ziari understood without needing to think about it, planning to kill him. Ziari wasn’t clear on when exactly this would happen, just that some time soon he would die at Nightjar’s hand. He would be impaled, pinned to the ground, lying in a spreading pool of blood trying to breathe with punctured lungs, staring helplessly at the cloudy daytime sky unable to see the stars one last time as all the world understood, even without witnessing it, that a great thing had happened, that a great weight had been lifted from their shoulders.

Ziari decided that was acceptable to him, so he decided not to avoid Nightjar over it or anything like that.

“I have hobbies besides horrifying everyone,” Ziari said with a shrug.

“Can you keep it together long enough to get to a better place to rest and hide?” asked Robin.

“Of course,” Ziari said smoothly, feigning calm by habit rather than choice. In fact, it immediately occurred to him that that was unlikely to be the best way to spin things, but too late to come up with and execute a better plan.

They set off walking again, Iselle frowning at him the whole time and Nightjar and Finch occasionally giving him concerned glances.

-~-

They meandered through a stream, around in a couple of loops, and in a star and a figure-eight, and stopped nowhere in particular. Again. By that point, Robin was panting and putting most of his weight on Nightjar, who, when he called a halt, helped him to sit down with his back against a tree.

Finch went and found a different tree, one with a wide sturdy trunk, and knocked on it a few times in a pattern that was almost certainly not random.

“Password?” the tree asked.

“Bluebird.”

The tree was, it turned out, hollow; some of the bark disappeared. A person became visible curled up inside. Ziari wondered if this was a hallucination, wasn’t sure how to check, and decided it was very important that no one rely on his judgment for anything important.

“Robin’s safe,” said Finch. “Lost everything he had with him, escaped with two other people, one’s the princess, no one has any clothes, we’re sending the princess and Stilla to Lisse.”

“…What, not even the princess has… damn, reckon her dad’ll still pay if…?”

“He most certainly will!” Iselle put in, taking a couple of steps toward them.

“Why shouldn’t he,” said Robin. It was not, despite the phrasing, a question. “She’s his only heir, even if he can’t marry her off.”

“Oh, he should be able to manage that, too,” said Iselle. “There are only a limited number of half-elven women still alive for princes to marry who don’t want to outlive all their children. I don’t think it will get much harder.”

Robin snorted. In the context that Iselle had _almost_ ended up betrothed to a younger prince of East Liat before the deal had fallen through, then _almost_ ended up with a prince of Ibentra before Ibentra’s whole royal family went into hiding, not getting any harder would hardly make it _easy_.

“Well, we’ll have an escort take you to Lisse. Finch, call whoever’s nearby.”

They either did all their plotting fairly openly or else spoke in a code that sounded exactly like what you’d expect plotting to sound like; Ziari found a place to sit and rest and listen to most of it.

-~-

Eventually, Ziari had the chance to take Iselle aside and recite what was left of his litany of facts, his suspicions about Sabinian’s loyalties, the almonds, what happened with Lop, all of it. He warned her he might be mad, warned her not to trust him, told her he was sure her mother would be relieved to see he looked no different now than he had before, told her he wasn’t going back, and wished her safe travels.

Then the outlaws escorted her out of the forest and Ziari stayed, still lost in his madness. The outlaws shared what they had, birch bread and venison, patched old clothes dyed in streaky green and brown, the warmth of half a dozen bodies in a pile of cuddles and defiant refusal to die of cold.

Robin, who’d been healed by Iselle, took sick again the day after she was gone. Ziari stayed with him and spent hours holding him to keep them both warm, during which time they sometimes talked.

Ziari asked him once how he came to be an outlaw.

“I was fifteen,” Robin told him, in an accent closer to the standard than he usually spoke in. “A lord’s nephew, living in Perrau. I was traveling one day and I went a little out of my way to visit the Westwood. That was when I met some foresters. They didn’t seem to be doing their job; they were so distracted laughing at something—I forget if I ever knew what—they probably wouldn’t have noticed a poacher if he dragged his dead deer right past them. I stopped to talk to them and one of them—a big man, not as big as Tiny, but big—said he didn’t know why I was carrying a bow, since he thought I looked like a thin little feather boy, not strong enough to draw such a great longbow as mine. I offered to show him. I met every challenge any of them set me, but that one forester still said he thought I’d just gotten lucky. I walked fifty yards away, turned around and shot him in the throat. He didn’t call that luck. He didn’t call it anything. He died. His friends weren’t too happy about that. Some of them decided to shoot at me. As you can see, I’m here today and they’re not. So then the survivors went and roused a nearby town and all the townsfolk came after me. So I shot some more people and after a while they gave up. Those who could run did. I looted some of the dead bodies and stayed nearby long enough to find out what they were saying about me. Then I decided I’d rather live in the Northwood, so I came here and started my merry outlaw band.”

A good person might have criticized Robin—or at least thought of it and been scared into silence—but Ziari just wondered Robin had exaggerated or if he really was that good with a bow. “Did all these people come to follow you just for that?” he asked.

“Cloud did,” said Robin, once more in the local dialect. “Some of the others were outlawed for their own reasons and thought they’d be better off with me than alone. They were right. Might be this is even better’n not being outlawed—it is for me.”

“How?”

Robin frowned and thought for a while before answering. “It’s… what’s life or health against freedom? Have you ever noticed… when you’re sick, you don’t feel like doing anything; you just want to rest. Then, as you’re on the mend, everything else gets better bit by bit, but you’re as tired as ever, until one day, all of a sudden, you’re not. You ever noticed that? Or have you ever known a place in the daytime, then seen it at night and felt like it was someplace else? It’s a little like that. And… humbling, sometimes, but sometimes you can be prouder than you ever could if you weren’t an outlaw. Sometimes I think about how it’s legal to kill me. Might be Varille’d rather catch me alive, but dead’s fine, too. Bring him my head, get a reward. They want to be rid of me so bad, it doesn’t matter to them if I’m brought to trial or just killed. Or tortured to death, even. Just as long as it makes the roads safe, they don’t care. The king doesn’t get angry just remembering I’m still alive and he doesn’t spend all his sleepless nights thinking ‘gods, please kill Robin as painful as possible’ or imagine breaking me on a wheel. He doesn’t hate me. It’s colder than that. I’m not even an enemy, unless you’d call a sheep-stealing wolf an enemy. The law doesn’t protect me, hasn’t for ten years… but here I am, still alive. They haven’t killed me yet. If that isn’t just the most beautiful thing in the world…” He smiled wryly. “Tiny’d be mad if I didn’t tell you no one else ever gets poetic about bearing a wolfshead.”

Ziari laughed. “I’ve always traveled for the same reason,” he said. “People don’t treat vagrants any better than wild animals but at least I’m not stuck with a master who’d never let me be happy.” No decent person, after all, would allow Ziari any of what he wanted, and he wouldn’t serve someone who _wasn’t_ a decent person, either.

“I like giving people that,” said Robin. “I like watching people… unfold and wake up and grow into being free. They’re all so different—sheep are all just sheep.”

Ziari held him tighter and decided that, if he could never go back to Varille, at least he had the chance to know someone nearly as admirable.


	6. Chapter 6

_“I’ll give no pledge, nor can you trust_  
_an oath that I have sworn._  
_I do not fear to meet my end,_  
_yet for my honor mourn._

_"But what's the use of killing me?_  
_What good can I do dead?_  
_Oh, spare me, not for mercy's sake;_  
_please let me work instead.”_

—Ballad of Jehan the Thief, traditional Serinnaise ballad

Ziari mostly stayed Ziari. Not entirely; he was the dreamer one evening, and he let the voice tell him what to do to survive that and didn’t speak to anyone else the whole time. But that was the only lapse for more than a week, and otherwise he was Ziari and lived in the woods and missed Varille so much it was hard to breathe. He helped the outlaws with cooking and laundry and waited to see if he was going to stay insane forever. After two days, Nightjar said he seemed more sensible; after three, he knew that the cat, because it didn’t exist, had no effect on anything except by affecting him, and had no desires or intentions at all; on the sixth day he and Robin compared what they each saw and heard several times through the day and the only discrepancies were the voice, a shower of brilliant purple sparks Ziari knew wasn’t real even before he asked, and one time Robin thought he heard someone call his name.

On the seventh day that Ziari was with them, Robin declared himself well enough and went hunting, but came back empty handed.

On the eighth day, Ziari asked Robin if he seemed sane now and Robin agreed that he did _seem_ fine.

On the ninth day, the outlaws spotted a woman and child trying to make their way secretly through the forest, and compelled them to join the band for dinner. On that day they were having venison, as they often did; it was the first time Ziari had had any, ever. The day was cloudy, and cold, but dry, though the fallen leaves that coated the ground were still damp from the rain the night before.

Robin greeted them warmly and the woman offered him a smile that, though clearly not sincerely happy, wasn’t at all hateful. She introduced herself as Ellia and her son as Taver, and Robin introduced his outlaws by their nicknames and Ziari introduced himself as Ziari.

They mostly sat on the damp leaves; Robin offered the woman a rock that wasn’t mossy and was mostly dry, and she insisted her son should sit there and she sat beside him.

“What brings you to our woods?” Robin asked them once they were all settled and everyone had been served.

“Couldn’t stay where we were,” said Ellia. “Couldn’t tell you where we’re going, either. We… had to leave. Wasn’t safe to stay.”

“Where’re you headed now?” asked Robin.

“Don’t know yet,” she said.

“We could go find my big brother,” said Taver. “I want to find him.”

“You don’t want that,” said Ellia.

“I hear Solanne’s nicer’n most places, if you don’t know anyone,” said Robin.

She laughed bitterly. “Nicer’n most, huh? That mean they’ll kill us nice and quick?”

“No,” said Robin. “It means if you’re real lucky and real useful and don’t look like you’re breaking any laws they might let you stay a while.”

“But we haven’t got a letter saying where we’re from or that we’re allowed to be there.”

Robin glanced at Ziari.

“Solanne knowingly hosted a masterless man for two years,” said Ziari.

“Gods,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You talk funny,” said Taver. “Are you an elf?”

“Don’t ask rude questions,” said Ellia. “Do you want them to think you were raised by pigs?”

Ziari would normally have refused to give a straight answer and let people think whatever they wanted. Under the circumstances, though, he would rather send the message that the question wasn’t rude or unwelcome. “I’ve been asked that before,” he said. “I’m very distantly descended from Rika, but I don’t hold any noble titles.”

“You don’t have to play along with his nonsense,” said Ellia.

“Oh, no, it’s nice to hear I look elven,” he said. “My, ah, father’s not even around to feel bad about it.”

“So does that mean you can teach me Litan?” Taver asked.

“Not in one day, but I can teach you a few words,” he said, and taught him how to say “god” and “mother” and “father” and “king” and “sacrifice” and “have mercy” and a few sentences—“the king sacrificed his mother to the god” and “the gods had mercy on my father” and “my father had mercy on the king” (and, at that last one, smiled so slightly at Ellia that he was fairly sure she wouldn’t able to tell if she’d imagined it or not). Ellia blinked and raised her eyebrows when he started, then watched him silently, frowning thoughtfully. Taver listened raptly and stared at him wide-eyed, grinning, and eventually asked for more words—“hello” and “woods” and “brother”, at which point Ellia put a hand on his shoulder and Taver went very still and slightly stiff.

“I think you’ve bothered this man enough,” she said.

“It’s my pleasure, really,” said Ziari.

Taver smiled at him nervously.

“He doesn’t mean his idea of fun is entertaining a five-year old,” Ellia said disdainfully, as though this was obvious and Taver was stupid.

Ziari glanced at his wrist, desperate for some help, but he didn’t have his bracelet and he could be _anyone_ and nothing compelled him to stay Ziari.

“But he said…”

“He was being polite. It wasn’t true.”

“You think I’m a liar?” said the lynx, very softly, delighted to have an excuse. He didn’t wait for her answer; he sprang up and tackled her, grinning, snarling, and slammed her into the ground.

“Ziari, stop!” Robin ordered him, voice like a general heading to battle.

The lynx sharpened his fangs, grew them out a little, and bit her throat. Her blood got _everywhere_ , on his face and his neck and in his mouth, salty and metallic and warm. He swallowed a mouthful.

Two of Robin’s men grabbed him by the arms and hauled him up and off her, too late—the lynx struggled against the men from Limeknee—no, not from Limeknee, that was a memory—there was blood on the ground—his hands—they were going to to take him to Verula, he couldn’t allow that, couldn’t allow them to survive the attempt—he needed to be stronger, so he gave himself more muscle and struggled harder and still couldn’t get away.

“I won’t go back! Let go or I’ll kill you all!”

“I don’t speak Liaten,” Robin said, and hearing Serinnaise reminded the lynx where he was. But they really did presume to detain him and he really did need to kill them for it. “Let him go.”

They let go of him and backed up several steps each. The lynx had a clear line of retreat into the trees if he wanted to take it. He considered killing them all anyway, but they outnumbered him and he might die in the attempt and anyway threats were hardly useful if you were just as likely to carry them out whether you got what you wanted or not.

“Ziari,” said Robin, “do you know where you are?”

The lynx watched him, silently, deeply displeased.

“You’re in my forest,” said Robin. “It’s winter of 821, as Serinne counts years. It’ll be 822 soon. Why were you shouting in a language no one here speaks?”

“Mistook you for someone else,” the lynx said with a shrug. “You’d rather ask me about languages than kill me after what I just did?”

“Haven’t decided what I’ll do with you yet but you could be useful enough alive I don’t want you dead if I can help it. The king likes you.”

The lynx laughed.

“Who’d you mistake me for?” asked Robin.

“No one in particular. Would knowing it was someone help you decide what to do with me?”

“I’m curious. Why’d you kill her?” he asked casually, as though it weren’t something he felt strongly about. He watched the lynx with keen interest, but not with anger.

“Ziari got angry when she accused him of lying.”

“There a reason you didn’t say you got angry?”

“I’m not him,” said the lynx, “and I just like blood. Why do you care so much?”

“Ziari saved my life. Or was that also you?”

“I don’t remember. So you won’t kill him. Why do you have so many questions?”

“It’s not every day someone up and murders a total stranger like that. No warning, no chance to beg for mercy, nothing. I’ve killed people. I’ve seen my men kill people. I’ve known murderers. And near every killer I’ve ever known had some reason besides ‘I like blood’ for doing it.”

“I really, really like blood.”

Robin frowned and pursed his lips.

“That’s all there is to it,” said the lynx. “I’m a monster, not a person; maybe that’s what’s throwing you off.”

“Ziari will be back, right? You two trade off?”

“I can’t believe you believe me about that,” said the lynx. “You could say we trade. Or become each other.”

“Don’t see why I wouldn’t believe you. Well, when Ziari’s around to be talked to I need a word with him.”

“Say your words; he’ll remember,” said the lynx.

“In that case, what was he thinking not warning anyone some rabid monster that kills people for no reason might take him over?”

The lynx snorted. “He had no idea I’d do that. I don’t really want to die, unlike _him_ , so why would I go around killing people at random? I just wanted her in particular to die. Not for any reason, though. I just hate her.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we just hate parents that bother to remember they have kids.”

Robin blinked. “Both of you? Do you hate the king?”

“Both of us, I don’t have an opinion about the king and Ziari loves him.”

“How does he treat the princess?”

“He’s pretty lenient. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of him punishing her for anything at all.”

“Does he pay attention to her?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Well, see, I live out here in the forest because I hate it when lords do whatever they want to their serfs just because they have that right, just because the serfs are theirs to do anything to. And I hate it in towns, too, when they have lords or mayors or guilds that can hurt people and call it fine because it’s their right. And I wouldn’t say exact that I’ll miss Ellia, and that’s for the same reason. Because I don’t care much for parents that act like that. So now I’m wondering if you don’t either.”

The lynx shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

Robin sighed. “Any guesses when Ziari’ll be around to talk to?”

“Oh, he won’t be. He’ll kill himself immediately. To protect people from me.”

Robin sighed. “I think,” he said, “that might not be what’s needed. Can you just not kill anyone else for a while?”

“Unless I take a personal dislike to them like I did to Ellia.”

“Can you not kill anyone who isn’t a parent or a lord?” asked Robin.

“Maybe. I get antsy. I can try if you’ll spare my life.”

Robin offered him a hand. “I will.”

-~-

The lynx stayed with Robin and his men for a while. He wrestled with them and learned to shoot and that wasn’t so bad; it was better than doing nothing and waiting until his rage and bloodlust boiled over. Robin sent a couple of his men off with the orphan to try to find a decent family to take him in, and admitted he might’ve raised Taver himself if he weren’t trying to host Ziari and the lynx.

One morning a few days later, Ziari woke. He lay very still and couldn’t quite believe he wasn’t dead, let alone that he was still welcome.

They had, that day, mending to do, and hunting, and people more trusted than Ziari would go lurk and watch for people passing by. They would if they were lucky have food that needed to be cooked later, too. Ziari volunteered to do the mending first of all, and Robin took one look at him and said, “Good morning, Ziari.”

“It’s that obvious?”

“Yes. Was your friend wrong that you’re planning on dying now?”

“You don’t want me to but I can’t think why not.”

“Remember what I asked him? About parents?”

Ziari nodded and was silent a while, then shivered. “You don’t like it either?”

“I hate it.”

“But… why?”

“Because it’s just… hurting people for no reason. And don’t you tell me they’re not people. Children have souls or why would we have funerals when they die?”

“I suppose.” He tried to imagine what it would mean for it to be wrong to hurt children. It would mean Varille was better than everyone else in yet another way. Varille and Robin alike, and Robin was also someone Ziari admired.

“Killing her didn’t help that boy, you know. There’s not a lot that does help, but you could’ve tried not making it worse.”

“What, you think he’s worse off as an orphan?”

“D’you have no idea what happens to orphans or were your parents even worse?”

“I have no parents,” Ziari said firmly, not in the tone in which an orphan might regret being orphaned but in the tone someone might use to disown a former family member.

“That bad, huh?”

“I have no parents, but if I did, hypothetically, have parents, they would be parents who killed their own daughter. Strangled her. It was… slow. It was her own fault, for being so clumsy. They were punishing her—she was about four, maybe—I forget what she did. They had her stand on an overturned bucket—the rim wasn’t quite even and it wasn’t quite stable—and she had a noose around her neck and if she hadn’t fallen she’d’ve lived—they didn’t make them stand there more than a day—anyway, she didn’t fall far enough to break her neck, so it was slow. Besides the death, it wasn’t really that bad—better than being beaten, anyway; they did that, too.”

“I bet you have a funny idea of how bad a beating’s supposed to be and I don’t want to hear it. That’s bad enough you don’t need to come to a man like me that hates all of society just to find someone who’ll tell you that’s wrong. That’s… bad. Anyway, what I was saying was, if you don’t _want_ to die, this is no reason to.”

Ziari could stand to stay with Robin. He could probably even stand to live up to Robin’s moral standards. He wondered if Varille felt the same way, and the thought of Varille was like a knife to the heart—he missed him so much. Maybe he really couldn’t stand to stay with Robin. For one thing, Robin would probably eventually be at odds with Varille.

“If you’ll have me, I’ll stay a while,” said Ziari. “Thank you.”

-~-

That winter, Robin and his men cooperated with the king, to an extent, in bringing Limeknee back under the control of the king’s loyal men. They spent a while after that discussing how to move forward, and settled on a pardon for Robin and all his men and a small stipend for their continued service to the crown in keeping the Northwood free of (other) bandits and safe for travelers.

One day, early in Dalaire, the second month, Ziari killed his first deer and they ate well that day because of him and that night he curled up out of the rain in one of their hiding spots, proud and happy and not, at that precise moment, grieving everything. It was then that Robin came to him with a message and a gift, after meeting with emissaries from the king.

“His Grace,” he said sarcastically (he always sounded at least a little sarcastic using titles), “wants you to know that if you were wondering why his answer to your last question was so easy it was because he spent long nights thinking about it before you asked. He also wants you to know he misses you and wishes you well and wants you to have some jewelry they took from Limeknee.” At this, he offered Ziari the jewelry in question: a bracelet with seven silver charms.

“Oh,” said Ziari. “Gods. I didn’t expect it back.” He fastened it around his wrist. “Thank you,” he said, although it hurt. It was a sweet sort of pain, though, and not a sick sense that everything was wrong and he would never be welcome anywhere.

But it hurt so much and he missed Varille so much and he would have gone back to him in a heartbeat if only he weren’t still broken in all the ways that ruined things before.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” said Robin, “why _don’t_ you go back to him?”

“Wouldn’t work,” said Ziari. It was only after he said it and Robin accepted it that he actually considered the question. He wasn’t acceptable, but he still hadn’t even tried going to talk to an anchorite and there had been reasons not to but now there weren’t anymore.


	7. Chapter 7

_My love, with hair like snow in sunlight_  
_Soul forever free_  
_Was singing of our life together._  
_Mine she'll always be._

—My Love, With Hair Like Starless Midnight, love song from northern Serinne

Ziari flew to Hound Isle as a raven, his bracelet in a purse borrowed from Robin clutched in his talons. He flew over the city of Rolin, built atop a cliff by the sea, and circled down and down, and found the temple to Lani and the thirteen-by-thirteen-foot cell adjoining it and the thirteen-by-thirteen-foot walled garden adjoining the cell. He flew in the window in the morning while the man inside was in the middle of his daily liturgy.

The anchorite looked up at him and smiled and went on praying and, as he prayed, dipping candles. Ziari landed on his bed—on the floor, no frame, but bedstraw and in a proper mattress rather than loose—and rested his wings and watched and listened to the prayers. The cell had one door, opening onto the garden, which in turn had no exit save back into the cell. There had been another doorway at one point, but it was bricked up now, the anchorite sealed inside. There was a window to a servant’s quarters in the bricked-up doorway, a small window looking in on the temple sanctuary, and a window that looked out on the street.

Listening to the anchorite pray and doing nothing—he could hardly interrupt; he knew that much—got boring quickly. He couldn’t go talk to another person while he waited and he couldn’t do work he could get paid for—he probably couldn’t use a quill as a raven, though he hadn’t tried—and he couldn’t even bite himself. He preened and preened a little more than necessary and plucked out a couple of feathers. The pain helped a little. It took him a while to remember that was Dalire’s gift, but he did, and silently thanked her. All the while, the anchorite watched him, bemused.

Eventually, around midday, the anchorite was done with his prayers.

“Hello,” said Ziari. “Are you taking students?”

The anchorite looked surprised but didn’t miss a beat. “Yes. You’d like to learn Lani’s teachings?” he asked in an accent Ziari had never heard before.

“Please. Can we start today?”

“Ah… yes, we can… Raven. Should I call you Raven?”

“Should I call you Human?”

“I am Moran of Dece. And you are?”

“…Raven. Let’s just go with that.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Raven. By the way, why are we speaking the tongue of the mainland?”

“Were you expecting something else?”

“I was not expecting a talking bird to ask for lessons in any language, but if you want to be formal, why not go all the way and speak Litan?”

“I’m Serinnaise.”

“Ah. That… explains something, I’m sure. Well. And you’d like to start now?”

“And I’d like to study as quickly as possible.”

-~-

Ziari stayed in Rolin for a while and lived with Moran while he studied. In the afternoons, he studied the teachings of Lani. The Lanian virtues were not, Moran said, commands, but rather something closer to advice; acting in accordance with Lani’s teachings would please him and might make life easier, but Lani eschewed morality and wouldn’t punish those who didn’t follow him—and even if he did, even if he were that sort of god, it was always possible to defy the gods. It might end in death or worse, but it was always possible. Moran’s lessons were not confined to merely listing virtues, either; he knew of ways to make each virtue easier to practice, ranging from the obvious (to improve self-control, when unable to proceed usefully, stop and count backward from thirteen) to things Ziari had, with difficulty, figured out on his own (that, having failed once, it’s better to have failed only once than to give up and fail as much as possible) to the downright absurd and vaguely sacrilegious (that fasting and asceticism sometimes, paradoxically, make the passions stronger rather than weaker, and eating food most days might improve self-control rather than weaken it) and even, occasionally, things he’d never heard of that made no sense at all (hard and draining labor could supposedly make people less fearful).

On fair mornings, he went flying, and that was lovely and beautiful and glorious and perfect. He was alive and he soared high above all the petty troubles of mankind, beyond the reach of lords and masters, untouchable and alone. On rainy mornings, he stayed with Moran and used all his willpower to avoid plucking out enough feathers to leave him grounded.

They spoke one afternoon of facing reality, good and bad, being there to enjoy things, having the courage to face the bad without turning and running in terror—and facing the bad exactly as it was, not as if it were infinite.

They spoke one afternoon of causes and reasons, of failures that couldn’t just be attributed to being a terrible person.

They spoke one afternoon of the limits of human reason (“and I assume also bird reason,” said Moran) and of how two seemingly contradictory things might be true at once.

They spoke of degrees of influence; nothing, Moran said, was fully under any one person’s control nor wholly out of it. A serf might somehow speak to someone who would speak to someone who would speak to someone who had the ear of the king; a strong and graceful man might try to walk across a room and be stricken with apoplexy.

They spoke of people whose sense of right and wrong disagreed with what they were taught; it was possible, Moran said, to feel guilty doing things you’d been told were right, and to feel no guilt at all doing things you’d been told were wrong. Ziari thought then of Robin and of children and serfs, parents and lords, and of all the times he’d done wrong and felt no guilt, of all the times he’d gotten angry at people for things he couldn’t possibly condemn, all the times he’d been righteously indignant and couldn’t weigh that against anything else, couldn’t admit to himself he was angry at a strict parent and wanted to step in to change things somehow and so couldn’t weigh the benefits of any action he took against any drawbacks it had. All he could do was either be Ziari, who wouldn’t do anything, or the lynx, who would, depending not on what would be best but on whether he had the ability to remain Ziari or not.

They spoke of right and wrong, and how to tell what was right, and Ziari wondered if he was unsalvageably evil after all. Maybe he wasn’t.

They spoke of emotions as analogous to a king’s advisers, sometimes right, sometimes wrong, sometimes only partly right, always saying something he could choose to listen to or discard.

They spoke of desires, telling desires apart from moral convictions and the instinct to be like others. Ziari considered that for a while, considered how much he admired Varille’s intellect and interest in learning, considered how miserable he was every time he had to read anything and how the only nice feeling he had about reading was pride that he had done so much of it, and noticed that he didn’t like books. He noticed that he preferred peasant food to the fare served at kings’ courts and worried it was because he belonged in the country or because he deserved to be subject to a lord or because he belonged in Verula (all was lost, they were going to drag him back, all was lost); he asked Moran if it wasn’t true, then, that humans preferred fine food if they were suited for court or simple food if they were suited for work. Moran asked him in turn what he made of how the sons of peasants and of lords and even of kings, when they devoted themselves to the gods, all ate the same food; and why, for the fast of Liven’s Grief, even nobles gave up meat and butter.

Ziari thought, too, of Liaten. It was the tongue of evil people and he had spent years trying to leave it behind, trying to forget how to speak it. It wasn’t an ugly tongue, though; it was simpler than Serinnaise in some ways, and it was possible to speak kindly in it. It simply made him think of Verula.

“Do you have any memories so bad they taint everything that reminds you at all?” Ziari asked.

“I did for years,” said Moran. “Not anymore. There are ways to… make the memories taint fewer things, if that’s something you’d like to learn to do.”

“What kind of… memories… did you have to deal with?”

“I’m from Dece. Oh, but you’re a Serinnaise bird; you wouldn’t know. The year I was sixteen, there was an epidemic in my village, the resulting labor shortage caused a food shortage a few months later, and the stress we were all under drove us all mad and the town was struck by the dancing mania. I don’t feel anything about it at all anymore, but it’s been almost thirty years since then and I can’t promise you can get over anything that completely in anything less than decades.”

“How do you do it?”

“It depends. How do the memories pain you now?”

“Whenever anything reminds me, I panic and think it’s happening again.”

“I think I’d advise you to make an offering of it to Lani or Dalire. The way I know of to do that is… sometimes upsetting and I’d advise you to be sure you can calm yourself down at need. Do you think, if you think of it and feel afraid, you’ll be able to deal with that?”

“Probably. How do I offer it?”

“In a candle,” said Moran, and he explained, and that day and the next and the next and the next Ziari worked on the offering: it was one of the long green tapers that were often burned on Lani’s altar, and Ziari held the memories in mind—Tinalu’s memories of beatings, of being told over and over again how worthless he was, of the day they dragged him back to Verula—and made it his intent to pour them into the wax as he carved designs in it with his talons. All the while they sang hymns in Litan to Lani; Ziari had to work on learning the words at the same time as carving the candle and remembering Tinalu’s life, and it left very little space in his mind for fear or horror. He paused very frequently, calmed himself down, and started up again, and again, and again and again and again and again, until the pain wasn’t unfathomable, until the horror wasn’t unspeakable, until it became finite and knowable.

He thought of Robin and told himself everyone deserved to be free until he began to imagine that he could, possibly, someday see all Verula’s victims as victims and not horrible hateful humans untempered by even the slightest drop of elven kindness. Maybe.

“There was a human,” he said toward the end, when every square inch of the candle’s surface bore some mark and the memories seemed like someday they might be bearable, “a serf, and I saw them drag him back to his village after he’d run away to a town. He’d been gone more than a year and the law said he was free but they took him back anyway and cut off his hands and put out his eyes. Was that… wrong?”

“I’ve been with Lani long enough I don’t know that I understand right and wrong anymore,” said Moran. “Maybe if you tell me what you mean by that.”

“Would other people, people who do understand, say it was wrong?”

“I think some would. Is that the same question? Whether it’s wrong, and whether other people would say so?”

“Not really. It’s… was it bad that it happened?”

“I don’t know what ‘bad’ means anymore, either.”

“It’s… bad things… really? Really?”

“Yes,” Moran said, but he seemed to be fighting back a slight smile.

Ziari considered definitions. Did it make the world worse—but worse just meant more bad. Was it something he didn’t want—but that didn’t mean the same thing at all. He knew already it was something he didn’t want, for anyone ever; everyone deserved, at worst, a quick death.

“Was it something that shouldn’t have happened?” he asked finally.

“I don’t really remember what ‘should’ means anymore,” said Moran.

“Are you _sure_?” Ziari asked.

“Yes,” said Moran, although the suppressed smile was more obvious.

“I’m not sure I believe you,” said Ziari.

“All right,” said Moran, but he didn’t then produce an answer.

Ziari sighed and thought for a while. “Did the human it happened to deserve it?”

“What does ‘deserve’ mean?”

“Liven’s balls!” Ziari exclaimed.

“No, no, not Liven’s balls, Lani’s confused anchorite.”

Ziari laughed, long and loud. It wasn’t the most natural way for a raven to express the feeling that prompted it, but it was the way that would be clearest for Moran to understand.

“Fine, then. Did the person it happened to… would… I suppose what I’m asking is…” Ziari wasn’t actually sure. He wasn’t asking whether the gods approved—he didn’t care about most of them, though he was tentatively friendly toward Dalire and Lani. He didn’t care if it would make anyone unhappy to end serfdom. There didn’t exist anything he could point to or any other words he could use. He couldn’t have given a definition of right and wrong, of just desserts, of good and bad, of the concept that something should or should not happen, at all, only a list of things he’d heard somewhere were good or bad or just or unjust. “I’m not asking anything and I don’t really care what the answer is. Did you know that when you started asking for definitions?”

“I wasn’t sure until you couldn’t immediately rephrase ‘was that wrong?’ and even then I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d come to some other realization instead.”

“Do you really not know what ‘wrong’ means, either?”

“I really don’t care,” said Moran. “It pleases Lani for me not to use the concept, so I don’t.”

“But it isn’t wrong to think things are wrong. Lani just doesn’t like it.”

Moran smiled.

“Thank you,” said Ziari. “Were you… like you are… before the illness and the dancing happened?”

“You mean, did I refuse to understand ordinary concepts and seal myself away from the world? No.”

“I… you said the memories aren’t painful…”

“A bit boring, honestly. Everyone wants to hear about the dancing mania. No one wants to hear about the peas we grew for Chenrille.”

“Were they interesting peas?”

“Yes. We grew them instead of leaving the land fallow and it recovered as well as if we hadn’t planted. We gave her a quarter of them and kept the rest for ourselves.”

“Do you suppose she’d do the same thing for the same price from other villages?”

“No one’s wanted to try. I suppose you wouldn’t know much about farming, being a raven, but there’s often not much extra and doing something new and risky could get everyone killed.”

“I’d rather be a raven than a farmer,” said Ziari. “I’d rather sell dog shit than be a farmer.”

“Well, luckily, you are a raven and not a farmer,” said Moran.

“Anyway, I’m not sure if I can carry that candle to the altar to light it.”

“I’ll have someone do it for you; that will be fine.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re very human, for a bird.”

“If I were shaped like a human, you’d think it was shocking how inhuman I am.”

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t care for laws and lords. I would _never_ accept any master.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m better than any human master.”

“What about another raven, then?”

“I wouldn’t accept a raven master, either.”

“You’re the best of all ravens, then?”

“Of course.”

“By the way, what do you mean by—”

“Oh, don’t. Forget it. Let’s talk about something else.”

-~-

Ziari did, the next morning, consider the question seriously. Of _course_ he’d never accept any human master. He wouldn’t want to be compelled to do things that were… that would hurt people he didn’t want to hurt, in ways that didn’t have any compensatory benefit. He didn’t want people who outranked him to think they were… more deserving of happiness, or always in the right when they disagreed with him. He didn’t want to give his word to stay and serve someone he would eventually decide to leave. And, of course, anyone good enough to be worth serving would know it was inherently good to hurt Ziari. In terms acceptable to Lani, that would be… anyone who cared enough about not hurting people would know that hurting Ziari was… was… something he had heard at some point was good.

It was impossible to find anyone who’d meet his criteria, so he wouldn’t swear himself to anyone, and so he would remain masterless and not, in the eyes of the law, a person.

-~-

He spent more than two months in Rolin, talking with Moran in the afternoons, going flying some mornings, learning the layout of the city. Once or twice, he spent a fair morning spying on people in the city. He fought a bird twice his size for half a dead cat once, or rather, annoyed it until it gave up and left the meat behind. It was then the season of Liven’s Grief, when meat was forbidden, and he enjoyed it even more for that.

But late in the month of Osrinnaire, in the spring, he thanked Moran, took his bracelet with him, and flew away.


	8. Chapter 8

_“You swore to obey," said the wrathful king._  
_(Wolves don't care if you're elven.)_  
_“Dishonor is greater than mere death's sting!_  
_You know what fealty requires.”_

_“Yes," said the man, "and I'm sworn to guard”_  
_(Wolves don't care if you're elven.)_  
_“My king, not to stay in your good regard!_  
_You know what fealty requires.”_

—Find Me A Bear I Can Fight Alone, singable Serinnaise translation of a ballad popular in Narvage and Garstark

Morelet came to the end of his sentence; ten years ago, he had killed his brother, and been given to the church, and sold by the church to His Grace, and it had felt like a death sentence that he happened to still be around to watch. He’d already negotiated to stay on as a free servant, paid, working fewer hours and able to leave if he chose. Well. Allowed, not able. He didn’t have enough saved up from selling socks and such, and he wouldn’t be welcome many places, being a murderer.

Altri’s Day, the first of Altrial, a day of freedom for slaves and generosity from the great to the small, came and didn’t fix everything. He was still, after everything, alone. The entire kitchen staff, of course, would celebrate with him, but most of them didn’t particularly like him, just wanted to pat themselves on the back and tell themselves they had something to do with the fact that he hadn’t killed anyone else lately. He had no family left who would acknowledge him. At least His Grace was occasionally nice, to Morelet and not just to an idea, but only on the rare occasions when he remembered Morelet existed at all.

At the feast that day, Morelet was served first, before even the king, and that was all right—it was Altri’s Day; it would hardly be Altri’s Day if the king were the greatest—and everyone congratulated him. Since Morelet didn’t drink much—a lesson he’d learned too late to save his brother—they’d soaked coriander seeds in boiled water to make it a little more festive than it would be plain.

It was all right, really. The princess was safe and Serinne was in talks with Liat and Atiron about something secret that made His Grace smile vindictively. It was only Morelet’s personal life that was empty.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder just as he took his first bite. He looked up.

“Move down a little, would you?” said Ziari, grinning. His hair was sopping wet and he was wearing a faded, threadbare tunic that fell to halfway down his calves, his bracelet, and absolutely nothing else at all. Not even shoes.

“Hello,” said Morelet, laughing. “Where’d you come from?”

“Good question! I delivered what you asked me to deliver.”

“Then you came back to Solanne and didn’t talk to me and then where’d you go?”

“That’s a great question. How’ve you been?”

“Better now that you’re here,” he said, since at least he wasn’t alone.

Ziari looked taken aback and was silent a while, then said, softly, “Oh.”

-~-

Ziari added a new charm to his bracelet, a heart, to represent the morals he wanted to live up to not because they were right but because he had chosen them.

He dropped a single half-penny in Altri’s offering plate at the chapel of twenty gods.

He bought a green candle and carved the same sorts of designs into it that Moran had showed him, and sang, and remembered, and gave it to Lani. Then he gave Lani two pence.

He fasted for a day, for Dalire, in thanks for guiding him to safety, finally.

He and Varille talked, late at night, about the two of them, about love and joy, about memory and terror, about gods and morals, about homage and loyalty.

They paid a small farming village to try offering the goddess Chenrille the deal she’d accepted from Dece for so long.

Liat and Atiron and Viela agreed to stand with Serinne in a joint offensive against the Nilkot Empire, now, rather than waiting to be picked off piecemeal when the Nilkots reached each of their lands in turn, and Iselle went with Serinne’s army, to use her gift to protect them. Varille argued with her about it, but didn’t, in the end, forbid her to leave.

The days lengthened and the weather warmed and Ziari wasn’t fine but he was less afraid and thought more clearly. When he needed to he explained himself to Varille, and Varille didn’t cast him out or try to kill him, just offered him the safety of guest right. That was all the safety he could offer without being answerable for Ziari’s behavior, but he offered it willingly.

Ziari wrote, and went nowhere, and eventually began to believe he was surrounded by guards who would probably protect him if anything happened.

-~-

It was the day before the summer solstice, early in the afternoon. Varille had finished holding court, but the hall hadn’t yet been rearranged for dinner; he sat upon his throne in silence, watching Ziari.

Ziari turned away from Varille and addressed the assembled. “I want to explain myself,” he said. “Varille’s not the only king I’ve ever known. It’s not his elven blood that makes him worth following; there are commoners I’d follow before I’d follow some of the half-elves I’ve met. I am not loyal to a title or to a crown. I am not loyal to a country first and to a king second. I…”

He turned back to Varille and strode forward, head held high, till he came to Varille’s throne and knelt. He clasped his hands and offered them up before him; Varille stood and took Ziari’s hands between his.

“I swear,” said Ziari, “by my life and self and all that I have and all that I am, I shall serve you until you release me or until my death or yours. Thus shall I serve you: when you err, I shall tell you so; when you forget the godly virtues you live by and govern by, I shall remind you. I shall give you honest counsel always, and let no one at all dissuade me from it. This I shall do no matter who tells me to do otherwise, and no matter what may come between us. And I… I shall obey you, and I shall be your sworn man.”

“Then I also swear,” said Varille, “to be worthy of your service and to offer you my protection and everything owed a man by his lord.”

Varille offered him a hand up and, when Ziari was on his feet, kissed him, not as they would kiss later in private but as was required by the ceremony.

Then, though the ceremony didn’t require it, Ziari hugged him.


End file.
